How do I measure the 17 years?

How do I measure the 17 years since I left full time employment to work for myself?

Do I measure it in hard times overcome such as: the recession; menopause; the death of my 89-year-old dad or 22-year-old cat; the pandemic & lockdown; or the current downturn?

Or do I measure it in the number of balls juggled between procurement consultancy and training and wanting to take Landscape Your Life out into the world?

Or, as I have chosen to do, share highlights of how Landscaping Your Life has grown and inspired change in others – 17 highlights in fact, and as I do so also sharing how I’m using these words to inspire my own journey going forward.

1. Landscaping Your Life – flourishing lives and teams

Back in the mid 90s I used gardening as a metaphor for supplier management and procurement and very quickly expanded that to nature, and their landscapes, being a metaphor for our lives.

As you’ll see below since then it’s not only inspired me to leave full time employment and set up a limited company, there’s also plenty of blogs, vlogs, podcast episodes, poems, workshops and a book!

My first highlight, therefore, comes from?a webinar?where I took the gardening metaphor and applied it to managing teams. Inviting managers and leaders to consider what makes for a flourishing team.

As I consider “what next for Landscaping Your Life?” I realise many of these apply – and am focusing on?perfect position?by way of a reminder that LYL needs to be seen to make the difference it can – hiding away in a corner hidden behind a hedge is of no use to anyone.

2. Landscaping Your Life ezine

This use of gardening as a metaphor for our lives featured heavily in?the LYL ezine.

This video shares the insight from an article in the ezine about how to have a buzzing life – a life full of passion, joy and laughter:

I’m thinking I perhaps need to do a little more to attract the buzz!

After years of using the metaphor in this way in coaching, strategy days and keynotes I realised a dream when I wrote a book on the subject.

3. Can’t see the wood for the trees?

I’ve always wanted to write a book and, after writing many books that never got further than my laptop ??, I was delighted when?Can’t see the wood for the trees? Landscaping your life to get back on track?was published in 2018.

It’s a self-help manual that you can pick up when you’re stuck and don’t know what to do.

One reader described the book as “first aid kit for the brain”, and as I reflect on all of the words in the book those that resonate most when I look forward to the next 17 years are:

4. Landscaping Your Life with Alison Smith Podcast

When podcasts appeared on the scene (yes I’m old enough to remember a time before podcasts) I realised recording episodes in nature leant themselves very well to this medium.

In?my podcast?listeners are invited to pick an episode title that most resonates with how they're feeling and then listen to it as I use nature as our coach and their landscapes as metaphors for our lives to help us get back on track.

The insight that comes to mind as I look forward is from the?podcast where I embodied my paths & destinations poem.

These words particularly:

Other paths

Movement away from where we are

A decision only needed when we reach that first crossroads

No destination in mind just one step at a time

And laugh so much on the episode at my resistance to taking one step at a time, and having no destination in mind until I got to the crossroads. The lack of visible progress meant I really really wanted to return to the start rather than keep walking.

The insight of course came because I recognised that pattern of old and I kept on walking. Something I know I need to keep on embodying today.

5. Landscaping Your Life YouTube channel

I love vlogging and sharing insight from nature and would need a whole newsletter to share all the vlogs I love.

So, next time you need a little insight or laughter do pop over to?the LYL channel?(I particularly love?reclaiming my parts,?plank, and?how to put down the stick down you’re beating yourself up with).

Today though I’m choosing this video – a reminder for me going forward of the power of my laughter and, something I think I’m good at and should continue to do, and that’s switching it about a bit, ie not keeping doing the same thing and expecting a different result.

Many of the vlogs share different prescriptions for changing mindset, and that’s perhaps where the idea of a journal for prescriptions first started – however unconsciously.

6. Your prescription for wellbeing journal

After facilitating a wellbeing session to a procurement team in the Midlands last year, who I had asked to complete their own prescription for wellbeing, I realised that a journal for these prescriptions was a GREAT idea.

Not long after that session my?Your prescription for wellbeing journal?was published.

The prescription asks you to make a note of what supports you in achieving the mindset you need and also what else you might be doing that’s not helping - that you need to stop doing.

As I look forward, I know that my own prescription will include doing more open water swimming, walks in nature, and writing, with?a little plank thrown in?when I’m feeling out of sorts. And doing less news and apocalypse film watching (best not to ask)!

7. Joy in the unexpected

One of the themes to my work is looking at things from unexpected and different perspectives, and it’s that joy in the unexpected that I shared with others in a workshop that included me sharing?7 tools to embrace the unexpected.

It’s during this session that I first realised that many of tools require that we send logical thinking on a coffee break to allow our creative thinking and inner wisdom time to have some fun.

And something I need to do a little more of about my business not just for others.

8. Soft skills toolkit

Looking at things from unexpected and unconventional angles meant that in the?soft skills toolkit?I imagined what postcards our soft skills would send to us by way of an invitation to develop them further.

This postcard from Creativity feels very apt for me today.

9. Poems and short stories

I started writing short stories and poems years ago to help me explore situations I was grappling with.

As people asked me to share these words I realised they also provide inspiration to others – to help them to see problems and situations in their lives differently.

My?What is normal? poem?talks to the challenge I've had throughout my life of accepting my quirkiness. Not listening to “that's not how it's done around here” but instead listening to my own inner wisdom about how to be in the world.

It starts with the words:

My normal isn’t your normal - yours isn’t mine.

It isn’t today, never was, and will never be?

As relevant today as they were when I wrote them.

10. Landscaping Your Life blogs

Never one to keep anything to myself?my blogs?are a resource full of hints, tips and insight to help when you’re stuck and don’t know what to do. They’re certainly where you’ll find information about everything I’m proud about on my LYL journey.

There’s a couple of challenges I’ve run that I'm particularly proud of and had great feedback about too.

11. Mindset 5 day challenge

The first challenge was the five-day mindset challenge.

The insight the majority of people got from taking part was exploring a question I asked on day one which was:

Are the words you’re using to articulate your goal inspiring and motivating you?

Not 'is the goal inspiring?', but 'are the specific words you’re using to describe it inspiring?'.

As I look forward 17 years ahead, I’m wondering in what way am I?a different person now at 60?than I was when LYL was first developed that means that perhaps the words that I'm trying to use to describe where I'm headed need revising.

Which I realise for me links to the book I’m writing entitled 'catching the next wave'. That is, I should look to avoid using words of previous waves, of the stream, or of the river but instead listen for words of the ocean from my inner wisdom. (Wow that feel big – and exciting).

12. Do something different everyday 28 day challenge

If you only take one thing away from these highlights, please let it be this.

Do this challenge alone or with colleagues, facilitated or not. It’s such a great challenge for shining a light on those patterns you’ve got on autopilot.

And is simply to do one thing different every day.

For 28 days.

In this?post from the archives, I share the insight that arose from one such challenge – something I try to do at least once a year. One of which was eating olives which, as you can see from the image, wasn't one of the successes!

As I write, I’m wondering what this challenge looks like when applied only to LYL – ie not coffee drinking or toothbrushing but sales/marketing/blogs etc.

13. LANDSCAPE model

Imagine my excitement when I realised all the tools in my coaching and problem-solving toolkit could be summarised under the LANDSCAPE acronym.

Laughter every time for me.

14. Mindset 4-box Model

I was equally excited when I developed this model to help map the tools used based on the level of resourcefulness you are feeling and level of pro-action.

A reminder for me to listen to that inner wisdom a little more.

15. Let's get zagging!

Themes in coaching of unhelpful and helpful mindsets when we’re stuck and want to get back on track lead to the development of the zigs and zags model.

ZIGs are mindsets that Inhibit Growth and zAGs Accelerate Growth – see?here?for an AtoZ and ZtoA of zigs to avoid and zags to embrace.

It’s a list the Scottish Institute for Business Leaders (SIBL) found really helpful as a checklist on a pre-lockdown workshop.

As I look at the two lists, I realised that the zIG I need to release is ‘Holding back’?and the zAG that I want to move towards is ‘Trust’.

As I look forward to where LYL goes next, I realise I need to take heed of the insight I shared in a webinar during lockdown and a 12-week programme I offered last year.

16. Motivation in Unprecedented Times

You’ll find a recording of a webinar I facilitated on the subject?here?– a great reminder that over time our values, that inspire our action, and priorities change and therefore doing the exercise outlined in?this blog?might be a great idea for me before rushing off down a path I think I want to take LYL.

Which links back to what I said in the 3rd of the 17 highlights that the values of an ocean will be different to the values of the river or the stream.

17. Take a Giant Leap 12-Week Programme

I’ll close the newsletter with a poem I wrote for the?Take a giant leap programme?that expressed where I thought attendees of the programme would be and where I think I am at this time…….

With love,

Alison

P.S. if you’re interested in any of these personally or organisationally please do get in touch.