Useful Tool – Overcoming Barriers

1. Useful Tool – Overcoming Barriers A story… West of the Pecos River, throughout the ranches of New Mexico and West Texas, cattle graze on ranges that are so large that it is not economical to hang gates everyplace a road crosses a fence. So ranchers invented the cattle guard – a ditch dug across the road with metal bars spaced every few inches to span the ditch at road level. Cattle guards were a great invention. Cars and trucks could drive right over them, but cows couldn’t walk through them. The cattle were effectively fenced in. Of course, there is one problem with cattle guards. When a pick up truck drives over a cattle card at 50 or 60 miles and hour, the jolt to the driver, passengers, cargo and suspension is terrible. Once upon a time, some enterprising cowboys got together to tackle this problem. Figuring that cows were not terribly bright, the cowboys decided to fill in the ditches, and paint stripes across the road where the bars used to be to keep the cows from straying. It worked. Cows wandered up to the painted cattle guards and said to themselves, ‘Whoa! That’s a cattle guard; I can’t go any further.’ Painted cattle guards became the rage. The cows, being mostly an unchallenging lot, accepted the painted cattle guards, chose not to question their fate, and spent their days milling around grazing in their assigned pasture. But of course, no solution is perfect. A few years passed and then, one day, a couple of cowboys found a herd that had crossed a painted cattle guard to graze in the rich, lush grass close by the Pecos River. Here is what the cowboys concluded: One cow had gone up to the painted cattle guard and for the first time really examined it. She squinted her eyes and looked at it hard. Thoughtfully, cautiously, she put one hoof on the cattle guard and discovered that it was just paint. “Paint! She thought. “This isn’t a real cattle guard! I have been fenced in all these years by a pretend cattle guard!” This went against herd wisdom. It was common knowledge that cattle guards were impassable barriers, it was the way things were! But now this cow thought hard and long about the consequences of being fenced in by paint. And although she was terrified, she put another hoof on the paint and still nothing happened! She took a deep breath and walked across. Then she led the entire herd across that painted cattle guard. That is what we call a smart cow. What made that smart cow successful wasn’t necessarily extraordinary courage. She was successful because she took the time to examine the painted stripes on the road and to think about them. She considered real evidence rather than relying on herd wisdom. Only then did she discover that the cattle guard – which had kept her fenced in for all those years – was just made up! The moral of this admittedly tall tale is this: At first glance, most adventures seem dangerous and full of barriers – like cattle guards that herd wisdom teaches us not to cross. But if we stop to examine what is fencing us in and then think about it, we often discover that the barriers are simply paint. If we can clearly understand the difference between what is real and what is paint, we can begin adventures we had never before imagined. [From: Play to Win! Choosing Growth over Fear in Work and Life. Larry Wilson, Hersch Wilson] Useful Tool – Excuses and Fears & Headspace Excuses and Fears List all the reasons you believe to be at the root of your imbalance. Many of these may be excuses! Examine what fear these excuses are linked to. Once we understand our fear we can do something about it. Now examine the fear to see where it came from, how valid it is now, and how to tackle it. Often, it is at this point that we realize we can overcome it, for it is a fear that started small and has become magnified over the years by never being given a voice. The silent fear is greater in every way than a voiced fear as it cannot be faced with the maturity of an adult mind. Headspace The law of disproportionate headspace works like this: If a task take up 15 minutes to do and is put off, the headspace it takes up is doubly proportionate to the amount of time the task will take. Furthermore, that headspace will grow over time. I developed this theory a decade ago, from hearing friends complain about housework. I would respond to them like this: it is not the cleaning itself that takes up all your time, it is the anxiety and guilt and headspace that is taken up worrying about when you are going to fit it in, and he fact that you’re not able to relax without a niggle that takes up time. Positive, clear, open headspace is more important to protect than the action of the doing or the not doing because it causes more problems. The fact is that clearing headspace is the simplest of things to address and makes the world of difference to a life or balance. It is a case of just doing the task and getting on with it. Don’t allow negative headspace to grow. It is destructive, draining and disproportionately time consuming. Clear your headspace by doing the dreaded task. Productivity, freedom and balance automatically follow. The task can never be as bad in the doing of it as what will follow if we don’t do it. (Source: The Balancing Act. Fiona Parashar)