Treat #63
: Puzzling?
I was in Maine for a week with my sister at their cottage on the lake. On the card table was a 1,000 piece jigsaw puzzle that had been started. We were forewarned by previous puzzlers that this puzzle was harder than most. But we were invincible, especially since the ones who started the puzzle had completed the outside rim and had also separated all the remaining pieces into like colors on 10 different paper challenge.
Instead the puzzle turned out to be an education into the various approaches I take to completing.
1.Using my intuition…picking up a puzzle piece without thinking and, voila! It fits. Thrilling.
2.First visualizing myself putting in many pieces and then immediately finding three or four in a row that fit. Inspiring.
3.Getting tunnel vision and obsessing about finding one piece that seems so obvious and, at the same time, obscure. Finally resorting to literally picking up every single piece in that color until the piece was located. Very time consuming and eventually satisfying.
4.Jumping around aimlessly from puzzle section to section daunted by the seeming impossibility of the task and, in the process, discouraging myself until I slowly fade and lose enthusiasm.
5.Saying things like: "this piece has got to be missing" or "who gave you this puzzle anyway? Are they sadists" or "this is no fun" and finally giving up and going to bed. Certainly no fun.
Obviously 1 and 2 were the best approaches. When I started obsessing, jumping around or playing victim the fun of participating disappeared; the pieces were impossible to find and the puzzle lay dormant.
It never occurred to me that we wouldn't finish the puzzle. We always finish puzzles at the cottage. But as the days went by it became clear that unless we spent every minute of the vacation working on the puzzle we were not going to finish it.
So I changed my agreement with myself and redefined "finishing". I tell my clients that as they process incoming information, to finish everything all the way through to completion, i.e. identify what can be done and doing it (if it is doable) in a couple of minutes.
I see completing as a continuum that has many stopping points until the final finish. And what may be complete for me might not be complete to others. So we can choose to declare what complete means to us.
My sister and I came up with our definition of complete for the puzzle: to do only what we felt like doing in the time we had left. As soon as I let go of the drive to finish it, I found the pressure lifted and the puzzle started to take shape.
We took charge of the what, when, and how of completing and stepped free of the puzzling.
P.S. I heard that the next guests at the cottage asked my sister how we did as much as we did on the puzzle. They couldn't make a dent. The secret was in the approach.
Martha Invitations
1.Redefine your outcome and definition of complete if you have a project that appears stuck.
2.If you are doing a task and experiencing frustration, just stop and find the laughter!
3.Observe your own personal approaches to doing and completing and see which ones best serve you.
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