Trepidation

Trepidation - what a great word!  It means - a nervous or fearful feeling of uncertain agitation.  That is exactly what I was feeling as I walked up the back stairs to the yoga room hidden in the upper floor of the personal training studio.  I had been taking these power yoga sessions for a few months, learning a little bit every time as I mastered the previous poses.  It was exciting to be learning a new yoga format but certainly a physical challenge as every pose seemed to have a whole set of powerful movements in between it.  Tonight I was going to try the whole 90 minute series even though I had only learned two thirds of it. 

"I am going to die!",  I thought as I climbed up the stairs trying not to make too much noise as my flip flops clapped the bottom of my feet with each step.  I started telling myself that I won't know what I am doing and I will be exhausted trying to jump back and forward between every pose.  In reality, that was very possible.  It turned out that there were only two of us in the class that night. The other woman was visiting from Boston for the holidays.  It was the day after Thanksgiving, and everyone else must have been relaxing at home with a turkey hangover.  The instructor started the class and called out the poses for us as we dutifully followed along.  The we reached the part where I didn't know the rest of the sequence.  I listened carefully to the instructor and also peeked at the woman next to me to see what to do.  "Just listen to me", he instructed.  I laughed as I found myself still trying to peek at the woman next to me who obviously had been through the whole sequence before.  The end result?  I didn't die.  I actually had fun trying the new poses and didn't feel any pressure to perform - just to enjoy. 

Talk yourself into the challenge and out of the trepidation.  It really isn't going to be as bad as you think. You might even have a really good time. 

Newton's Laws

As a scientist, I had many laws and rules drilled into my head over the years.  One that is easily retrieved from the recesses of my mind, word for word, is the First of Newton's Three Laws of Motion.  It states that "Every object in a state of uniform motion tends to remain in that state of motion unless an external force is applied to it."

As we go about life, we tend to end up in routines and ruts and patterns of behavior.  Our process for getting ready for work in the morning or for bed at night may follow the same routine.  We drive the same roads at the same time on the way to work every day.  We answer our e-mails after getting our coffee, before touching base with our co-workers.  Our favorite television programs call to us at the same time on the same day every week (unless we tape them and change our viewing pattern).  Our exercise routines (it's even called a routine), approaches to the holidays, relationships, problems and just about everything we can think of seem to be repeats of the time before.

What would happen if we turned our day upside down and ate breakfast for dinner and dinner for breakfast, or dessert first instead of the salad?  What if we looked up instead of down?  What if we changed one little thing about the way we did things or looked at the world and put ourselves on a different track and pace? What would result?

I recently heard a story of a photographer who was looking for inspirational pictures for a client and went about the city taking pictures of everything he saw,  Tired from the day, he was walking through a park and rested himself on one of the grassy hills nearby.  Looking up at the sky he had a great insight.  He started to take pictures of the sky and the clouds instead of all the objects rooted to the earth and found the perfect snapshots for his customer. 

Give yourself a little kick in the side and put things in motion that weren't previously - and see where it takes you.   For more ideas check my newsletter at www.ideasandbeyond.com.

The Answer Is Right Under Your Nose - Ok - Maybe Under Your Drink

All of the first time attendees to the conference were gathered in a hotel meeting room seated at round tables.  Seasoned attendees walked about the room placing two clean sheets of flipchart paper in the center of each table.   Another person followed behind and dumped a pile of cheetos on the paper.  A third person poured a small pile of marshmallows next to the pretzels.  A package of graham crackers followed with a giant dollop of cake frosting on a plate and a bag of giant gummi candy.  (My mind starting reminiscing about Girl Scouts and smores when I saw the marshmallows and graham crackers. Where was the chocolate?  How could they miss a key ingredient?).  The frosting was the only glue for the spaceship we were about to construct from the materials in front of us.  We readjusted our belongings, moving some onto the floor but kept our drinks (water - ok - some were wine and beer) on the table on the paper in front of us.

Several teammates started grabbing graham crackers and the glue (frosting), putting together small boxlike vehicle creations, none of which resembled a spaceship at all.  We finally decided that we needed to draw a conceptual vision of what the spaceship would look like.   It didn't take one creative lady at our table long to suggest we use the paper we were drawing on for our spaceship.  Within minutes a spaceship started to materialize before our eyes resembling a giant version of the paper airplanes we made as kids.  The engineer in me couldn't resist adding pretzels in key positions for structural support.  For the finishing touches, we added the brightly colored junkfood in strategic places for decoration.  Voila!  We had a spaceship. Ok - more like a space shuttle, but it was a flying vehicle.       

So many times when we are working on a problem, we miss the simple solution right in front of our eyes - or right under our drinks in this case.  Sometimes we need to back up and think less but differently and the answer will appear - or at least some new options. 

Please share in the comments your stories of "out of the box" or "under the junkfood" thinking that helped you solve a problem.