All Knotted Up
Coaches often encourage metaphors emphasizing strength, courage and commitment. We seek to emulate mountain climbers, strength competitors or endurance athletes in goal achievement. I frequently do the same and each of those pictures can be very helpful. Each, however, also comes with additional assumptions about the type of work to be done that can inadvertently make problem solving more difficult.
Here’s the rub: what if the metaphor doesn’t fit your situation? If the picture the metaphor suggests is a poor fit for your reality, you set yourself up for failure from the very beginning. Metaphors like trekking, training or running come pre-programmed with set strategy and tactics. They might suggest you should push hard, let’s say, to tackle a long to-do list at work. In that case, the picture might direct you to something very helpful. However, on the flip side, pushing hard can be completely counterproductive when it comes to, say, cultivating rest in your down time or intimacy in a relationship. In other words, the strategy and tactics embedded in one’s picture of the work at hand are only useful as much as the picture reflects the nature of your situation.
What if getting unstuck is about finding a new picture to model the situation we face?
As a kid I was a knot-tying master. My poor mother would find everything from extension cords to bathrobe belts knotted up in various contortions. That’s saying nothing of any spare yarn, neckties, blankets, bedsheets, long-sleeve t-shirts and handkerchiefs braided, looped or otherwise and unrelentingly coiled. Fortunately, corresponding to my talent for enmeshment was an equal knack for detangling. To this day my mom keeps a small stack of knots she requests that I untie during my visits home.
I often think back about the principles of getting a knot undone in my work as a life coach. Knots are a powerful picture in getting people and situations unstuck. It frames even the stuck feeling itself as a puzzle to piece together, rather than a wall to tear down. It helps emphasize arrangement, sequence and trial and error over sheer effort and will-power—two things stuck folks tend to be running short on anyway. It’s a subtle, but powerful shift that can really kick progress into gear.
Here’s four insights I’ve learned uniquely from picturing dreams and goals as a knot to untie:
Knots need examination: A cinch in a string rarely gives way just by pulling harder—often it just tears the thread one was trying to save. The same applies when we simply try harder to master something where we already struggle. Instead, take the extra effort and re-examine things from all the angles at the outset. Identify multiple possible routes forward that suit your strengths uniquely.
Knots need turning: Many times you have to flip a tangle upside down to notice the way work in one area loosened things on the other side of the tangle. Progress can be hard to see in one isolated area, but when you look holistically, many times a brand new picture of your progress emerges. It also instills greater confidence for what still lies ahead.
Knots need fuel: Tough knots require a fuel source for sustained attention. If you only have sheer desire to get to the finish line, patience is your sole fuel source. Curiosity, though, about how the knot or situation works, it’s shape, how it was tied, it’s strong and weak points and especially how the untying challenge might be tying you up inside can unlock tons of new possibilities.
Knots need friends: Sometimes it takes a team just to get things started. My family used to pass around the most unyielding knots to see if someone could just find the first thread ready for a pull. The hard stuff necessitates the strength of many and the laughter that accompanies the stories of heroic untanglings of the past while you wait. Hard stuff is whatever is hard for you, be sure and find friends to help get things started.
The knot-loosening picture doesn’t change the situation you face, but it unlocks a way forward and even taps into skills and abilities that otherwise remain on the sidelines.
Be sure the picture you pick isn’t creating unnecessary tangles for you.
