All In Good Time…

 

“Um, Ed – can you come help me, like NOW!”, I cried out to my boyfriend in the next room. In he rushed, ready to perform all sorts of first aid. Strangely I don’t think it was quite the scene he was expecting. Me – twisted like a pretzel on the bed. Feet tucked up to my elbows, arms overhead, unable to move. Literally. I was completely trapped, by my own body.

“What are you doing?!”, he exclaimed as he helped pull my feet back into a much more familiar position.

“I think that’s why my yoga teacher said it was for the level 2 practitioners”, I muttered to myself.

It’s my thing this year. I’m trying to be disciplined by going to yoga class each day (ok, every other day). When I do go, I always find it so rewarding. Getting there is sometimes an effort though. Tempting lunch offers from the girls at work for tempura and crab rolls; or having to negotiate with myself about the real reason I’ve forgotten to bring my leggings. “Did I really forget them and should I just buy another pair at the gym, or is the universe trying to tell me today is not my day for yoga?”. Oh and my favourite – mixing up the yoga timetable and arriving 2 hours early for the class (a Monday classic of mine.) It’s not always easy staying on track.

But once I’m in the class, and I’ve forgotten about my blunders, it’s pure bliss. My teacher is wonderful. The type that provides options for her class, given your current state of fitness and flexibility. She has a knack for making you feel unashamed of taking the lower options because “you should only go as far as your body is telling you”. I’m not afraid to admit that I’ve been known to take up her offer of low impact pregnancy options.

It’s funny, even though yoga is one of the most egoless activities one can do, there’s still an element of internal and external judgment and comparison rattling around at the back of our minds. Admit it – we’ve all been in a gym class, taken one look to our left then right and sized up the competition. We want to succeed. Failure is uncomfortable because it brings up those feelings of inferiority, embarrassment or whatever horrible memory managed to imprint itself into our nervous system.

My yoga practice is reveling some of those pithy truths about ourselves that we’d prefer not to face: Letting go of constantly judging – especially ourselves. As my teacher reminded me today – “The stretch is not so much about touching your fingers to your toes, but enjoying the release of the pose and letting go of the need to reach the destination”. That statement struck me like a stretch running up my hamstring. What an obvious sentiment. It’s bantered around on those greeting cards at the newsagent “Happiness is about the journey not the destination”; plastered onto coffee mugs and reiterated time and time again by those older and wiser. Yet so often we feel like we’re in a constant state of striving, heck even when we’re at the gym! No wonder stress is the number one cause of disease.

I’m not about to state that we should all check-out and take a back seat in life. The opposite. In fact, if we’re not prepared to challenge and grow ourselves, it’s game over in my mind.

My reflection is on how we choose what we strive for and how it makes us feel. Deciding to run a marathon because your best friend did it so you should too – not a great reason. Deciding to run the marathon because you would like to stretch yourself and see how far you can really run – great reason.

It’s not about giving up everything but maybe looking at the way we have been approaching tasks, work, relationships and changing the meaning we ascribe to these things.

“Where your focus goes, energy flows”, coos my yoga teacher. With that in mind, she promises that in due time we will all be doing headstands in the classroom if we keep this up.

So for now, I’m willing to let go of my eagerness to join the lean machine in the corner of the room standing on his head with the rest of his body towering above like a long, weightless feather. I’ll go at my own pace, one breath at a time.

Back to Basics

“Everyone’s so busy,” I thought to myself this morning on the train. Everyone had their earphones in, furiously checking emails or playing tetris on their phones. I was particularly amused by the woman across from me who had her ipad 2 perched on her lap whilst she simultaneously scrolled through her blackberry and responded to messages in between stations. What are they all reading? Is it all urgent and important, or spam mail they’ve forgotten to unsubscribe from. Can it wait until we get to work, say hello to our colleagues (with eye contact and a genuine smile), make a cup of tea and sit down at our desks?

I’m not judging, just observing. I’m completely the same some days. We’re so wired all the time, it’s exhausting.

Have we become a nation addicted to activity? Somehow with the onslaught of  “high tech high touch” solutions I think we’ve lost touch with each other.  The art of conversation, real human-to-human connection; single-tasking rather than listening with one ear to our colleagues and solving our own personal problems at the same time. My favourite – the phone call from your colleague when you’re in the next room… (seriously this actually happened to me on Monday).

I’m all for technology, in fact I think it does make our lives easier but we’re got to choose when we engage with it and when to get back to basics with conversation and real face time. We’re only human after all.

She’s Still Got It

I’m down in Canberra at the moment, visiting my Nan who is having some tests done. She claims she’s losing it. When I waltzed into the hospital room with scrabble and the Women’s Weekly under my arm she shook her head and announced she didn’t remember how to play the game. I find that hard to believe. On her second go she turned down my suggestion of ‘NIP’ (total of 7 points) in favour of ‘JAIL’ – earning her a double word score of 24 points.

But that’s not the reason I know she’s still got it. The other day I decided to read to her. She loves being read to – don’t we all? I remember when my teachers at school would announce ‘book time’ each afternoon and we’d eagerly run to the front of the classroom and seat ourselves cross-legged on the floor, heads tilted up, eyes wide and ready to let our imaginations run wild with the story.

Nan is the same. She perks up and licks her lips in anticipation. I picked up the novel beside her bed and began to read. Several pages in, I paused and looked over to see if Nan was following the story.  Her eyes were glazed over but obviously from engrossment in the story because she eagerly said, “go on dear”. So I did. And so did the story, which progressed from harmless conversation to a perverted love making scene! “Keep it cool Patel, we’re both mature adults here. Just maintain an even tempo and she’ll never notice”, I thought to myself. She did notice and she handled it so gracefully – “You can have a rest now dear if you like”. Relieved I put the book down, cheeks rosy and said “yes, a good idea Nan”.

She’s a dignified lady my Nan.

Let the Creative Juices Flow

A great way to start geminating new ideas is by creating an ‘ideas board’. I keep a cork board in my study and pinup pictures, words, scribbles – anything I collect day-to-day that inspires me.  Putting different images and words haphazardly together often creates new ways of looking at situations and problems. A great thing to do on a rainy day with a pot of tea, good music and some interesting magazines. Get those creative juices flowing!

Age Versus Experience

This age old debate has got me thinking. We humans are crazy creatures. On one end of the spectrum we complain that we want to grow up quickly so that people will take us seriously and respect us, on the other end we try to cover up our age from fear of appearing old and crusty.

I was having a conversation the other day with two new business acquaintances (older women). We were discussing the launch of a sales training for graduates. The conversation went like this..”wow, you’re  so passionate and inspired”…(pause) “but you’re so young, perhaps you don’t have enough experience?”.

When it comes to credibility, what is the happy balance between age and experience? Does one really exist? Or is it simply a deep-seated social belief that ample time spent in the corporate trenches or halls of Harvard credentialise you? Should one hold back on an idea or new perspective because it’s too early or they haven’t enough “experience”? Innovation doesn’t care how old you are. In the famous words of Victor Hugo – “Nothing is more powerful than an idea whose turn has come”.

My response to the ladies went like this “Yes, I am quite young aren’t I. But really, when is enough experience enough and when is it time to act on what you do know?”. The younger lady blushed and admitted, “yes, even with 10 years in the industry, I still feel like I don’t know enough”. I would argue that she does know enough, she just doesn’t know it yet.  You see experience doesn’t necessarily need to be linear and industry specific. Some of the best ideas come from unconventional thinking where disparate worlds collide.  A la Newton and that famous apple. Many businesses now look outside their industry for new modes of operating and different ways of viewing a problem. Banks looking to see what they can learn about customer experience from an airline, to Not for Profits examining how to streamline business processes by observing the inner workings of top retail chains.

Instead of staying in the job ”one more year” or getting “one more degree”, let’s start drawing on what we already know.  Instead of categorising our skillsets and experience into chronological boxes, let’s start joining the dots between them and cross-pollinating what we know.  When everything you’ve done counts, I think you’d agree that we have more experience than we credit ourselves for.

The start-up causing plenty of buzz

http://www.smh.com.au/small-business/startup/the-startup-causing-plenty-of-buzz-20110217-1axjp.html

This article in today’s SMH reminded me of how a good idea usually surfaces after a bunch of crappy ideas have been explored. Quantity not quality in this case. The cream always rises to the top.

Creativity is in the action, not the idea.

Hi guys,

My name’s Anika – Ani for those that know me well and for this wordpress blog which promptly told me ‘anikapatel’ was already registered. It’s actually ironic that this happened. I’ve been thinking recently about  ideas and innovation. My feeling is that most businesses, whether they’re in the creative industry or not, are under the thumb to innovate and get creative about how they operate in a world where things are constantly changing. A feasible task for those gifted with right brain real estate – the likes of Google, Pixar and Zappos.

It got me thinking..what if you’re just not that creative? Seriously -what if the best idea you’ve ever had got shot down in grade 3 and now you’re so scarred by that experience, that all other ideas have been tightly bolted down into the the pit of no return, safe from public scrutiny and humiliation?

But with boardroom mandates like “We must innovate or die” – surely something’s gotta give. There’s got to be room for the rest of us to compete with those creative hippies.

So my thought, and it’s half-baked at this point, is that creativity is in the action and not the idea. It’s ok if you aren’t the one to come up with the killer idea.  The real glory is in seeing the idea through to fruition. The sweat and tears. The thought behind how it can take off. In other words – just being an ideator isn’t enough.  This has to be true because how come my idea like the dual action kiwi fruit knife/spoon seems to have appeared on supermarket shelves..I swear that was my idea…just never got around to doing anything about it.

Now, if only I hadn’t sat on my laurels about this idea and registered ‘anikapatel’ sooner…