Landscape Your Way to Success with a Metaphor
Landscape Your Way to Success with a Metaphor
Metaphors are great in visualizing your goals. They take you to your imagination and away from the “how.” The how can often be a goal killer. Goals are usually going after something not previously attained, hence, the unfamiliar. The unfamiliar can be very uncomfortable. Therefore, it is less painful to avoid the “how” by avoiding new goals. A metaphor will help you gain momentum. Some of my clients have used what I call, “Landscape Your Way to Success.”
Take a moment to imagine planting a garden and the garden is your life! Visualize a circular garden divided into wedges, giving each wedge a theme. Here are nine possible themes:
* Relationship w/wo partner
* Career/Vocation
* Family
* Friends
* Money
* Fun/Recreation
* Spirituality
* Self-Care
* Lifestyle
Look over the garden from a broad perspective. You notice there are numerous perennials that come back year after year. Stop to analyze if some of these blooms seem to be withering. They may have lost their ability to grow from being overly processed in the same soil. Maybe it is time to dig them up, put them in the recycle bin, and sow some new seeds and plants. Other perennials are newer and worth keeping.
From this place of observation, give each wedge a number code from 0-10. The lower number zero is assigned to plants not doing so well. A 10 is for those plants that have reached full bloom. Example:
Spring Landscape – Time to Plant New Seedlings to Harvest in the Fall (6 months):
Relationship: 5 - if single/divorced/not interested at this time/living with partner/married/dating
Career/Vocation: 3 – so, so, but not satisfied
Self-care: 2 – time to start to exercise & eat better
Money: 4 - tight squeeze
Friends: 7 - friends are supportive
You get the idea! Continue to fill in the rest to get the big picture of your garden. This is a great metaphor to examine the landscape of your life. Plus spring is the perfect time to think about planting new ideas to harvest in the fall.
Questions Hold the Answers to Your Landscape:
* What are you noticing as you look over your life landscape?
* What feelings come up?
* Which themes require more fertilization – nurturing – attention?
Picture it is six months later, time to harvest your goals. You see a beautiful garden, full of new blooms and promises for even more. You evaluate from where you started several months ago to now. For example, compare the above numbers with the numbers below. It might look like this:
Fall Landscape – Time to Harvest – 6 months after planting in Spring:
Relationship w/wo partner: 7 – happier – having more fun
Career/Vocation: 7 – on target with career objectives – enjoying vocation
Self-care: 5 – looking good! feeling better!
Money: 6 – pressure off and re-investing
Friends: 9 - are supportive, fun to be with
Questions Hold the Answers to Harvesting Your Desires:
* What seeds did you plant to reach these higher numbers?
* What difference would it make to be able to harvest the outcomes you desire?
* What did you weed out of your life that wasn’t growing?
* What coaching did you pursue to help you grow your garden?
Tips: Sow the Seedlings of Your Desires:
* You are the creator of your garden. You get to plant the seeds of what you want to attract.
* Listen to your heart, not the ego, to what you are meant to plant.
* Nourish what you plant by focusing and taking action.
* Watch your mindless chatter committed to keeping you from succeeding
* Hire an experienced professional to train you in the skills to plant, nourish and harvest beyond what you already have in your garden.
“Hold fast to dreams for if dreams die, life is a broken-winged bird that cannot fly.” – Langston Hughes
Landscape Your Way to Success with a Metaphor - To learn more about this author, visit Theresa-Maria Napa's Website.
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“They who dream by day are cognizant of many things which escape those who dream only by night.” –Edgar Allan Poe
Metaphors are great in visualizing your goals. They take you to your imagination and away from the “how.” The how can often be a goal killer. Goals are usually going after something not previously attained, hence, the unfamiliar. The unfamiliar can be very uncomfortable. Therefore, it is less painful to avoid the “how” by avoiding new goals. A metaphor will help you gain momentum. Some of my clients have used what I call, “Landscape Your Way to Success.”
Take a moment to imagine planting a garden and the garden is your life! Visualize a circular garden divided into wedges, giving each wedge a theme. Here are nine possible themes:
* Relationship w/wo partner
* Career/Vocation
* Family
* Friends
* Money
* Fun/Recreation
* Spirituality
* Self-Care
* Lifestyle
Look over the garden from a broad perspective. You notice there are numerous perennials that come back year after year. Stop to analyze if some of these blooms seem to be withering. They may have lost their ability to grow from being overly processed in the same soil. Maybe it is time to dig them up, put them in the recycle bin, and sow some new seeds and plants. Other perennials are newer and worth keeping.
From this place of observation, give each wedge a number code from 0-10. The lower number zero is assigned to plants not doing so well. A 10 is for those plants that have reached full bloom. Example:
Spring Landscape – Time to Plant New Seedlings to Harvest in the Fall (6 months):
Relationship: 5 - if single/divorced/not interested at this time/living with partner/married/dating
Career/Vocation: 3 – so, so, but not satisfied
Self-care: 2 – time to start to exercise & eat better
Money: 4 - tight squeeze
Friends: 7 - friends are supportive
You get the idea! Continue to fill in the rest to get the big picture of your garden. This is a great metaphor to examine the landscape of your life. Plus spring is the perfect time to think about planting new ideas to harvest in the fall.
Questions Hold the Answers to Your Landscape:
* What are you noticing as you look over your life landscape?
* What feelings come up?
* Which themes require more fertilization – nurturing – attention?
Picture it is six months later, time to harvest your goals. You see a beautiful garden, full of new blooms and promises for even more. You evaluate from where you started several months ago to now. For example, compare the above numbers with the numbers below. It might look like this:
Fall Landscape – Time to Harvest – 6 months after planting in Spring:
Relationship w/wo partner: 7 – happier – having more fun
Career/Vocation: 7 – on target with career objectives – enjoying vocation
Self-care: 5 – looking good! feeling better!
Money: 6 – pressure off and re-investing
Friends: 9 - are supportive, fun to be with
Questions Hold the Answers to Harvesting Your Desires:
* What seeds did you plant to reach these higher numbers?
* What difference would it make to be able to harvest the outcomes you desire?
* What did you weed out of your life that wasn’t growing?
* What coaching did you pursue to help you grow your garden?
Tips: Sow the Seedlings of Your Desires:
* You are the creator of your garden. You get to plant the seeds of what you want to attract.
* Listen to your heart, not the ego, to what you are meant to plant.
* Nourish what you plant by focusing and taking action.
* Watch your mindless chatter committed to keeping you from succeeding
* Hire an experienced professional to train you in the skills to plant, nourish and harvest beyond what you already have in your garden.
“Hold fast to dreams for if dreams die, life is a broken-winged bird that cannot fly.” – Langston Hughes
Landscape Your Way to Success with a Metaphor - To learn more about this author, visit Theresa-Maria Napa's Website.
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Dianne CramptonDianne Crampton is an executive leadership coach, team consultant, author and president of TIGERS Success Series, Inc. Dianne has been helping CEO's and Executives connect their employees to their core values and goals for over 20 years using the trademarked TIGERS team culture process, which stands for trust, interdependence, genuineness, empathy, risk and success. To download a free white paper on behaviors that build strong teams and behaviors that will predictably tear them down go here. - Visit Dianne Crampton's Website |
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Leanne Hoagland-SmithAre your sales where you want them to be? Will you be one of the few who achieves sales or business success or one of the many who have failed to change? Are you tired of being told you are like everyone else? Then you may find my first book on sales of interest. Be the Red Jacket in the Sea of Gray Suits, The Keys to Unlocking Sales available at Amazon or at http://www.processspecialist.com/red-jacket.htm. This book is a reflection of my no-nonsense approach to improving sales to overall business results. If you are truly committed to making sustainable changes, then I can help you secure a positive return on your investment because I focus on executable solutions not telling you the problems you already know you have. From training to corporate (group) coaching to executive one on one coaching, my approach is to assess, create awareness, build a goal driven action plan and then execute. The bottom line question is "Not do you or your employees know it, but do you or they want to do it?" Please call for a free strategy session at 219.759.5601. - Visit Leanne Hoagland-Smith's Website |
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Linda RichardsonLinda Richardson is the Founder and Executive Chairwoman of Richardson, a global sales training and performance improvement company. As a recognized leader in the industry, she has won the coveted Stevie Award for Lifetime Achievement in Sales Excellence and she was identified by Training Industry, Inc. as one of the “Top 20 Most Influential Training Professionals.” Ms. Richardson is credited with the movement to Consultative Selling and is the author of ten books on selling and sales management, including Sales Coaching — Making the Great Leap from Sales Manager to Sales Coach, and Stop Telling, Start Selling. She teaches sales and management at the Wharton Graduate School of the University of Pennsylvania and the Wharton Executive Development Center. Linda is a frequent speaker at industry and client conferences, has been published extensively in industry and training journals, and has been featured in numerous publications, including The Wall Street Journal, Forbes, Nation’s Business, Selling Power, Success, and The Conference Board Magazine. Learn more about Richardson's sales training and performance improvement solutions at http://www.richardson.com web - Visit Linda Richardson's Website |
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