RESHUFFLING YOUR APPROACH

Yesterday I started what many of you finished weeks ago: decorating for the holidays. We got a tree, pulled out the nutcrackers and brushed off the Santa hats. As I placed our NOEL stocking holders on the bookshelf (much to my disappointment, we don't have a fireplace to adorn), I smiled and told the kids that our house was officially decorated.

It didn't take long before my oldest son, Max, started to snicker. He is a clever young man, full of the best kind of mischief. When I asked him what was so funny he said, "You'll see it eventually." I looked around the living room, not noticing whatever had changed. Eventually, I saw that our stocking holders now proudly said, "LEON." 

"Very nice," I complimented, as I rearranged the metal letters back into their proper order. As the night went on, each time I left the room, I came back to a snickering Max. I'd look at the letters, and sure enough they were arranged into a new word. Who knew how many words one could spell out of the letters in NOEL!

As I sat on the couch this morning thinking about this week's e-mail, I felt inspired by Max's creativity. There are a few projects on which I've been stalled over the last couple of months. I've had it in my head that I needed to move forward in a particular way. Since I've made little or no progress, it's clear that my current approach is not working. Today as I look at all of the possibilities created by rearranging letters on a bookshelf, I think there must be multiple ways could rearrange my thinking to achieve my goals. 

If you have some goals you created for 2017 (or beyond) that you haven't yet met, consider rearranging your approach. Perhaps these prompts will help your thinking:

• What's the easiest way to take one step closer to the goal?
  (Sometimes getting a little momentum jump starts our motivation.)
• What's the most fun way to proceed?
  (When I inject a playful attitude, my creativity blossoms. Check out my recent #WeLiveBigWednesdays for more on this.)
• What would [insert favorite role model] do to reach the goal?
  (If we can get out of our own brains and into someone else's we're bound to come up with new ideas.)

By the way, if any of you are wondering about the "word" in the lower right corner of the photo collage, Max tells me it's Noel with no "L." Hee hee hee.