Posts tagged weather

…rather than ‘no but…’.

I am back from my holiday in Cornwall, where we visited the most westerly point of England (Lands End – which is a tacky tourist hell hole) as well as the most southerly point (The Lizard – which is lovely and the cafe there does a great lunch).  I stayed at my sister’s house (while she was away in France on a family holiday – thanks Elaine x). 

Now the danger of a holiday in the UK is the weather not being up to scratch.  I appreciate this is a very British topic but there is a good reason for this – our weather changes a lot in a season / a month / a day / an hour.  This summer we have had days when we have literally had beating hot sun, torrential rain, followed by hail stones.  Well our week in Cornwall was no exception – on days two and three water teamed from the sky solidly, which was all the more annoying as day one of hols was a sunny stunner. 

I stated in my pre-holiday post on 29 July that ‘It will be great if the weather improves but ho hum if it doesn’t…’ however by the morning of day three I can tell you that I had lost the ‘ho hum’ spring in my step.  I was feeling very annoyed that the weather was so rubbish.  I was in a total ‘no but’ zone – every time Chad suggested something we could do I was being a grump and starting my responses with ‘no but…’ and guess what it got us absolutely nowhere. 

I managed to snap myself out of the zone with a conscious effort to be ‘yes and…’. This is a tip that I have been taught to facilitate creativity at work.  I often use this technique with clients prior to a meeting where I need people into a good zone where they can think outside of their normal constraints.  The best way to explain this is to try out the following exercise with someone…

OK - you are going to plan a picnic with the other person.  One of you is going to suggest something about the picnic, say for example where the pair of you could go for this special occasion.  The other person needs to start their response ‘No but…’ and explain why.  Try this for a couple of minutes going back and forth.

Now try the picnic planning with a ‘Yes and…’ approach, where you suggest something and the other persons response is ‘yes and…’, try this back and forth.

See the point?  See which experience is exciting and uplifting, full of energy and vigour?  The other being an emotional drain where you want the other person to just shut up. When you need to get progress and get somewhere you need to not over analyse – you need to build on other people’s ideas, add to them and you end up in a much better place.  With this approach you get much better material and you just need to spend some time editing afterwards.

So I had to practice what I preach and get into a ‘yes and…’ mindset as the rain fell in bucketsful.  On day three we ended up having a fun day and thankfully the rest of the week the sun came out to play.

We had a great break – lots of whizzing around in the car (with the hood down), we consumed a decent amount of booze (we visited a great vineyard in Camel Valley), ate great food (including lunch at Jamie Oliver’s place) and visited a seal sanctuary that I last went to on a Crump family holiday when I was about eight years old.

Sometimes when we are feeling grey we just need to apply ‘Yes anding’ to our lives.  We can be so sceptical and throw up walls and excuses.  Sometimes you just gotta dive on in there, yes and, swim to the bottom, yes and, find that treasure chest, yes and…