_Over the New Year holiday I visited the Miniatur Wunderland in Hamburg and saw people who must really love their work. . Apart from being amazed at the number of small children that could be crammed into one small warehouse, I was primarily impressed with the details. It wasn't simply the scale of the project that was impressive but the attention people had paid to all the small things.
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_The signals along the track turn to red and the trains stop. When the road vehicles slow to a stop, their brake lights glow. Milimetrically small advertising hoardings having changing electronic pictures on them, fans in the Hamburg football stadium have flags that tey wave periodically. On top of al that there are the mini-scenes within the different worlds; the frogmen diving a river to find the corpse; Pippi Longstocking lifting a horse in a village; gnomes working in a mountain cave; a couple making love in the middle of a field of sunflowers.
Watching some of the workers bent over their desks painting the tiny figures, you wonder what drives them. They are investing time to provide details that most of the visitors might never spot. Presumably they enjoy what they do - given some of their unergonomic desk positions, I hope they aren't being forced to work their. I'm guessing they even love what they do and get a kick out of including the little details into their worlds. Maybe people spotting the scuba-diving cows makes the workers smile as well. Yes, you could argue that they must simply be detail-focussed people and I would agree in part - they could never cope with the job otherwise. However, the level of intricacy goes beyond mere attention, moving into a passionate love of detail.
Which bits of your job do you love doing? What is there in your normal day or week or month that gets you interested more than the rest of the drudgery? Yes, the MW people need to make sure that the trains all run to the schedule and don't crash, that lights come on when 'night time' happens so that the basics of the wonderland work. They could stop there, but actually its all the exciting little extras that make the place so fascinating for everyone from 3 to 83, judging by the rapt attention of the visitors I saw.
Lots has been written about finding meaning in our work and maybe at the start of the year we need to re-examine what we do. Can we find an analogy to painting today's person faster than yesterday's, making it a neater job, with more colourful clothes? Maybe there are little scenarios we can include that make people smile or big thigs we can create that make people gasp. How can we relate differently to our boss, our colleagues or our visitors in order to make them feel better or for us to enjoy our days more? Its true what people say that the more you put in the more you get out; it might mean we have to give a little extra but isn't that worth it? Iif we enjoy our work more, how much more will that contribute to our happiness and mental well-being?
I was having dinner with some friends the other night and it being Christmas, we had crackers. Someone at the table found a short measuring tape inside theirs and amidst the ongoing cracks (and non-crackery pffts of the failures), it had to be played with, particularly due to its shortness. Would it go round their waists, the ladies wondered, as in fact did some of the men.
At only 25 inches long, I wasn't entirely surprised when it barely reached round both sides of my torso! For me it was better emplyed for examining neck, biceps and such like, but it did provoke a discussion about what was important. In the midst of this we started to wonder about the value of a stretchy measuring tape. If we want to be a 25 inch waist, how brilliant would it be if we had a device that would unfailingly peg us to that standard, particularly in the post-Christmas expansion phase that we are about to embark on. One of my friends posted a status that said, "stomach now waiting to be filled repeatedly to well past its normal 'full' limit over the next few days" and I'm sure he's not alone in thinking like that. I very much doubt though that he will be joining the ranks of those concerned about the consequences.
I started to wonder how often we try to fool ourselves into thinking we have met the standard by simply changing the measurement to match where we have got to - stretching the tape to fit round us no matter how many mince pies it needs to girdle.
Whilst it would be great to know we will meet our targets, if we can only do it by cheating then it devalues our efforts entirely. A stretchy measuring tape might sell well to the self-deluded of our nation but I would far rather help folks to really get where they want to be.
So I trust that as you sit down over the Christmas period and recognise your achievements for the past year, both large and small, that you will do so with an air of celebration for something measurable and that you will set realistic goals for 2012. Enjoy what time you have to pause and reflect and I wish you all a very happy Christmas!
I've just read Jana Kemp's book, No! How One Simple Word Can Transform Your Life, and thought it might be helpful to mention since a number of people I have talked to recently have mentioned an inability to say No! or even just no.
First of all, its useful to remember that saying no to someone does not need to be you rejecting the person, being deliberately difficult or obstructive or trying to damage what the requester represents, be it a job, charity or friendship situation. Life can carry on after you have said no and people will not hate you for the saying if you do it politely, deliberately and firmly.
However if you say yes and don't mean it, that can ultimately get you into more bother when you don't follow through or your yes turns out to have been maybe at best and you start to lose repsect. Unless of course you manage to achieve everything you promised in a fit of superhuman power. And then collapse and pay the price yourself.
Throughout the book, Kemp talks about the Power of No, and she takes Power to stand for:
Purpose - what actually needs to be done here?
Options and resources - even if say no can I offer anything in return or make other suggestions
When - what is the actual deadline and if I say no now can I propose yes for a different deadline
Emotional Ties - how do you feel with yes or no and other feelings related to the request
Rights and Reponsibilities - what are your rights if you say yes or noe.g. rights to call on others to help, recquisition resources for the project
They are certainly topics worth considering before you unthinkingly say yes again but once you have done that you'll need to be assertive in the way you put across any no answer. Be clear, polite and if possible friendly and stick to your guns. If necessary repeat your bottom line until they get it.
The book goes on to look at the idea of self-defence; sometimes you need to say no to defend yourself, your time, health and position. There is also discussion on the ethics of saying yes or no, especially when you don't actually mean it.
I can imagine if you are really struggling to say no a lot of the time and it causes you stress that there are definitely helpful ideas in this book; you probably want to pick and choose which bits you read though.
At the end of the day I suspect, like all self-help type books, it might only take you so far and having someone external (partner, family member, friend or a coach) dedicated to helping you will reap far greater rewards. Get in touch if you want to know how a coach could help you in your particular situation.
"I don't want to do that." "But why ever not? It will be fun." "Because I'm scared." "But...you've never done it before!" How often have you heard that kind of conversation played out, either as an observer or with you in one of the roles? Whether you have heard it or not, you might even have had the conversation with yourself in the privacy of your own mind. I may even have conjured up a picture in your minds of a time when it happened, reminding you of how constrained you felt. The big question though is, "Did you carry through and do it and if so, how do you feel about it all now?" Quite possibly laughing about how daft it was to feel that way because you can see now, with the benefit of the experience, that the situation was easy/fun/worthwhile or whatever. Many people are scared before they ever attempt something but often, once they have tried it and are successful, they are overflowingly positive and realise the negative anticipation was all out of proportion. Tad James, an expert on public speaking, says, "As far as the emotion of fear is concerned, you can be afraid of something only after it has occurred." Until that point when you take the plunge you don't know what the experience will be like - you are only guessing, maybe based on what your friends, enemies, newspapers or little internal voices are telling you. A bit like a child faced with new food, we can all conjure up different excuses and negative aspects for something that others know to be harmless and good for us. We just don't know what its actually like until we have tried for ourselves. So are you looking ahead to a new experience in the future with a certain amount of fear and trepidation or anticipation and excitement - remember, you don't have to stay in that state; you can change the way you feel. And the big bonus, on top of genuinely looking forward to it, is that you'll probably perform better when you get there. Don't hang around, do something about changing the way you feel, today - email nick@spc
 Ben Nevis tourist path Following the crowd
I was walking up Ben Nevis at the weekend, using the tourist track for the first bit of the walk in order to access the north side of the mountain. Now, admittedly it was the height of summer, but I was absolutely amazed at the steady stream of people all wandering upwards; a wide variety of people, with a huge differentiation in preparedness amongst them. Some appeared to be ready for anything, others were out for an afternoon stroll; there were families, couples, solos, 3-peakers, tourists - everyone seemed to be on the Ben.
But they were all following the same path. Admittedly it is the easiest way to the top of Britain's tallest hill, but the thought of trudging (and thats a gracious way of describing the gait of some) in someone else's footsteps all the way to 1344m doesn't really appeal to me. I love the quote from Robert Frost about the two roads that diverged in a yellow wood: "I took the one less travelled by, and that has made all the difference".It inspires me to find my own path through life as well as on the hillside.
Taking our own route
Now, taking our own route made things a little trickier, but still achievable - you can see a little section of our day in the video below. Its debatable whether we had a greater feeling of achievement than the folks clambering on top of the cairn but I suspect we enjoyed the route more than the puggled people forcing themselves a step further with each breath. Instead we shared the ridge with only one other couple and had a few hours of very peacefu, pleasant scrambling. All because we chose to take our own route away from the crowds.
Are you still trudging along with the rest of them? Maybe its not on a montain path. What about in your work? Perhaps in the things you believe? Possibly in the opinions you have read and absorbed from a newspaper.
Now I'm not saying that any of these are wrong; what bothers me though is so many people doing the same old same old, simply because 'thats the way its always been done'. Test it, check it, is it still the best way to do something? I talked to a colleague today who said he had recently been asked in interview 'what have you changed recently and what difference has it made?' Maybe we all ought to ask ourselves that.
What things will you question today in order to find your own unique path?
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