The Happy and Prosperous Blog

The idea for this post came from my good friend Gavin who is a business coach and trainer. A few years ago, Gavin and I, along with other friends, ran some personal development courses in Spain. Gavin facilitated this exercise and, because I had never done it before, I participated along with the group. Now I would really like you to do this exercise too. I think it is best done in a group but you can do it here and now while you’re sitting at your computer. Will you do it ? You can do it with some other people later - it would make a great after dinner game (maybe !)

OK, let’s do it. The exercise is in three parts and you must do each part separately and not read further down to see what happens after the third part, otherwise you won’t get the benefit !

Part One

Point to items in the room and, as you point to them, say out loud what their name is. Picture, light, screen, keyboard, mouse, desk, books… whatever you see, name it. Easy.

Part Two

This is similar. Point to an item but this time say nothing. Now point to a second item but say the name of the first item. Point to a third item and give it the name of the second item. Continue for a couple of minutes doing this, pointing at an item but saying out loud the name of the previous item. Not quite so easy.

Part Three

This time point to an item and give it any name you want. Continue like this for a couple of minutes, point at items in the room and giving them whatever name you like.

Results

OK, what did you do in this last part ? Most people (myself included) make up random names for the items they see, often names of things that are not in the room. E.g. point to picture and call it Big Ben, point to keyboard and call it car park. It then seems to become an intellectual exercise to think up new names for the objects pointed at. If this is done in a group where everyone says the names out loud, then another dynamic may come into play - competition. People (myself included again) try to think up increasingly bizarre and unusual names and compete with others for the most unusual or most comical.

Now, let’s go back to the instructions for the last part. You can give every item whatever name you want. So, you could give each item it’s real name. Or you could call each item the same name. People tend not to do this as they give themselves rules which they then adhere to and so make the task much more complex.

Rules

What rules did you give yourself ? If you did give yourself rules then why did you do it ? My answer to that was that it didn’t occur to me that a simple solution would do. There was a step up in complexity between part one and part two, so I decided part three must be harder. I wanted to think of myself as clever and witty so I wanted to make up unusual names that would make others laugh. Other people in my group were doing the same so this process escalated more and it became even more difficult.

This is a trivial example but I think it illustrates a good point. We make up rules for ourselves which are based on assumptions. We don’t check the assumptions so we end up making life more difficult for ourselves. Even in this trivial example, many people make the task so much harder than it needs to be. What about in more important issues ? What is there in your life now that is more difficult and more complex than it needs to be ? Are there assumptions that you’re operating under that you should be checking ?

If you feel like it, please do let me know. Thanks for reading.

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