When we are facing challenges, we often don’t consider the state we are in. Instead we just do our best to tackle the problem at hand. However, our state of being or state of mind makes a huge difference. It really helps to get into the resourceful state.
Software Bugs
I encountered this before I even really knew about the resourceful state. In my past, when I spent a lot of time creating software, I would, occasionally, face a really big hairy bug in the code. Crazy unthinkable symptoms would exhibit, and no matter how hard I tried to isolate where the problem spot was, the solution would elude me.
I would get completely frustrated, and eventually I would give up on it for the time and go do something else. Almost without exception, I would solve the problem while I was doing something completely unrelated, out for a walk or standing in the shower.
What was happening was that the more frustrated I became, the further away I was from the resourceful state. My capacity to solve the problem was diminishing. Then I would get away from the problem and find myself back in a resourceful state, and my subconscious would solve it for me.
Now I know more about the resourceful state, how to get into it, and how to recognize when I’m out of it. When I face challenging problems, I am able to get myself into a resourceful state first – not that I always remember to do this, doh!
Experience
Being out of the resourceful state is a sense of contraction – almost like when I tighten a muscle. When we are out of the resourceful state, our focus narrows. We can get locked into a single way of seeing things. When we are experiencing feelings like fear, anger, frustration, or anxiety, we are out of the resourceful state, focused mostly on one thing. It’s pretty ironic that the emotions we are likely to experience around a big challenge in our life are exactly what hinders us in facing the challenge.
Experiencing the resourceful state, on the other hand, is a sense of relaxing expansion. Our focus widens. We are less in our head, thinking and analyzing. Instead we are more in our heart open to emotion, and we are more in touch with our subconscious and intuition. The noise in our head dies down, and we are more creative.
There are times when we want a narrowed focus. When are in the “zone”, we are completely focused on a single task. Time slips away, and we have great productivity. In this case we are not in the resourceful state, and we don’t want to be.
However, when we need to tap into high creativity, to widen our focus, and to solve really tough problems, we need to get into the resourceful state. I know that some people equate being in the zone or flow with the resourceful state, but that’s just not my experience. Being in the zone or flow, and being in the resourceful state are two different places for me, and they are just about opposites.
Getting Into It
One way to get into the resourceful state is to tap into positive, expansive emotions like gratitude, thankfulness, and joy. Think about a moment in your past for which you are really grateful. As you take time reliving that moment, notice what is happening in your facial muscles. The muscles around your eyes relax. Your eyebrows unfurl a bit, or maybe a lot. The analytical part of your mind quiets down, and your perspective shifts. This is the resourceful state. Try tackling a tough problem from this place and see what happens.
Have you experienced the resourceful state? How do you get into this state, and how has it helped you?
