What do you think?
Rate this book
Can't See the Wood for the Trees?: Landscaping Your Life to Get Back on Track
A guide to using the metaphorical language of a “stuck” situation to discover the solution
• Shares an easy, fun process of exploring well-known sayings as a means to identify new solutions and get unstuck in life and work
• Explains how to bring clarity to a problem, highlight alternative perspectives, bypass any conscious resistance to finding a solution, and allow solutions to emerge organically, from within ourselves
• Details the author’s “Landscaping Your Life” method, which has been used successfully in business strategy development, team development, project problem resolution, and in one-to-one coaching
If you can’t see the wood for the trees, feel like a fish out of water, or are going around in circles, we’ve got good news for that saying is also a clue to where you’ll find the solution. Yes, you read right--you can use the language you’re using to describe the stuck situation to discover the solution. It’s not even the language as much as the landscape contained within your description of the situation that can give you pointers. As Alison Smith explains, “If a picture paints a thousand words, then a metaphor paints a thousand pictures. In other words, the metaphor in the saying you’re using will provide a million words that will undoubtedly have the solution contained within them.”
That’s what this book is all about--taking these sayings that you’re using to describe being stuck and using them to get unstuck again. The language you apply provides clues to how you perceive the current situation. Subconsciously, you know the solution. Exploring the metaphors contained within your language allows your subconscious to communicate to your conscious awareness more easily. The metaphor reduces resistance and the barriers we put up to change. It’s as if we enjoy exploring the metaphor and forget what it means in reality, and before we know it, we have a metaphorical solution that we cannot help but translate into real life.
Offering an effective, easy process based on the power of metaphors, Alison Smith introduces her “Landscaping Your Life” method as a means to bring clarity to a problem, highlight alternative perspectives, and allow solutions to emerge organically, from within ourselves.
• Shares an easy, fun process of exploring well-known sayings as a means to identify new solutions and get unstuck in life and work
• Explains how to bring clarity to a problem, highlight alternative perspectives, bypass any conscious resistance to finding a solution, and allow solutions to emerge organically, from within ourselves
• Details the author’s “Landscaping Your Life” method, which has been used successfully in business strategy development, team development, project problem resolution, and in one-to-one coaching
If you can’t see the wood for the trees, feel like a fish out of water, or are going around in circles, we’ve got good news for that saying is also a clue to where you’ll find the solution. Yes, you read right--you can use the language you’re using to describe the stuck situation to discover the solution. It’s not even the language as much as the landscape contained within your description of the situation that can give you pointers. As Alison Smith explains, “If a picture paints a thousand words, then a metaphor paints a thousand pictures. In other words, the metaphor in the saying you’re using will provide a million words that will undoubtedly have the solution contained within them.”
That’s what this book is all about--taking these sayings that you’re using to describe being stuck and using them to get unstuck again. The language you apply provides clues to how you perceive the current situation. Subconsciously, you know the solution. Exploring the metaphors contained within your language allows your subconscious to communicate to your conscious awareness more easily. The metaphor reduces resistance and the barriers we put up to change. It’s as if we enjoy exploring the metaphor and forget what it means in reality, and before we know it, we have a metaphorical solution that we cannot help but translate into real life.
Offering an effective, easy process based on the power of metaphors, Alison Smith introduces her “Landscaping Your Life” method as a means to bring clarity to a problem, highlight alternative perspectives, and allow solutions to emerge organically, from within ourselves.
208 pages, Paperback
Published August 21, 2018
5 people want to read
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
October 4, 2018
As a storyteller who also works in the Supply Chain sector, I was keen to get a copy of this as soon as it was published. The premise of the book is that you can use the power of metaphor to become "unstuck": whether you are stuck in your career or personal life.
Alison uses her experience of coaching to illuminate the idea that "a part of you already knows the solution", but you need a technique to find it. This builds on conventional coaching theory, but introduces the idea of working with metaphors to discover what you already know. I know from my own work that metaphors are powerful ("provide a million words"), but the idea of using them as a self-help diagnostic was new, and surprising.
The key lies in exploring the metaphor, and remaining in it for longer than seems comfortable. And as you explore the metaphor (a beach, a rut, a creek) you may find your answer. The metaphors chosen all relate to the landscape, and I think the idea could be expanded to not just landscape metaphors, but stories from culture, history and science. But the landscape metaphors chosen still seem to provide good examples, and allows Alison's obvious love for her Fife home to shine through. Although not all potential readers are blessed with beautiful scenery outside their door: how well the flat landscapes of bleak suburbia will inspire a change is open to debate.
The author's style is very informal, and follows very much a coaching style. There are no references or citations: this is not a scholarly volume, and many of the statements are hedged with equivocation, "on the other hand". I don't usually read self-help books, but this style seems appropriate if the target reader is "stuck in a rut" as dogmatism or theory is unlikely to unstick such a reader.
When Alison shows how her instinct for metaphor served her well in her purchasing career (p35) I got the glimpse of another book in waiting. How landscape metaphors can be used to describe business situations, and how her formulation that the answer can be found in the language of the metaphor itself can be used to illuminate and potentially solve all manner of business challenges.
Alison uses her experience of coaching to illuminate the idea that "a part of you already knows the solution", but you need a technique to find it. This builds on conventional coaching theory, but introduces the idea of working with metaphors to discover what you already know. I know from my own work that metaphors are powerful ("provide a million words"), but the idea of using them as a self-help diagnostic was new, and surprising.
The key lies in exploring the metaphor, and remaining in it for longer than seems comfortable. And as you explore the metaphor (a beach, a rut, a creek) you may find your answer. The metaphors chosen all relate to the landscape, and I think the idea could be expanded to not just landscape metaphors, but stories from culture, history and science. But the landscape metaphors chosen still seem to provide good examples, and allows Alison's obvious love for her Fife home to shine through. Although not all potential readers are blessed with beautiful scenery outside their door: how well the flat landscapes of bleak suburbia will inspire a change is open to debate.
The author's style is very informal, and follows very much a coaching style. There are no references or citations: this is not a scholarly volume, and many of the statements are hedged with equivocation, "on the other hand". I don't usually read self-help books, but this style seems appropriate if the target reader is "stuck in a rut" as dogmatism or theory is unlikely to unstick such a reader.
When Alison shows how her instinct for metaphor served her well in her purchasing career (p35) I got the glimpse of another book in waiting. How landscape metaphors can be used to describe business situations, and how her formulation that the answer can be found in the language of the metaphor itself can be used to illuminate and potentially solve all manner of business challenges.
November 18, 2018
When you are stuck you have to try a different way of thinking - and that’s not always easy to do. Using metaphors helps you shift your thinking - and the ones you use every day have lots to teach you too! Really enjoyed this book, particularly the “making mountains out of molehills” as even just looking at a molehill from a different angle, or seeing how small it actually is was enough to change my thinking on something I thought I couldn’t change.
February 20, 2022
Over the last couple of weeks, as I’ve been commuting back and forth to the office, I’ve been capitalising on the lack of internet access and reading this really rather excellent book by Alison Smith ‘Can’t see the wood for the trees? Landscaping your life to get back on track’
Never had I imagined that a seemingly ordinary book could hold such important insight into the world of problem solving. If you’re looking for a new tool to help you get unstuck and get your life back on track, then this is the book you have to read
Alison has developed a very clever method of using metaphors to help people get unstuck, and she’s called it Landscaping Your Life. It really is ingenious!!
The basis of the LYL method is that you explore the metaphor which you use to describe your stuckness to help you become unstuck. It’s an amazing idea!
For example, when you’ve missed an opportunity (e.g. you didn’t apply for that job you fancied) you may describe it as having ‘missed the tide’. What Alison does is help you put the problem aside and explore your metaphor. You create the landscape in which you’ve missed the tide and explore where you are and what your world looks like, sounds like, feels like, smells like and tastes like! By doing this it helps you uncover solutions to catching the tide next time around, or maybe even rowing out to meet it! The solutions you derive from this exploration help you find solutions to your stuckness!
One important part of this method is that you stay with your metaphorical landscape - don’t try to match your metaphor with your problem because bouncing between the two means that you’re not really focussed on either
I really enjoyed this book and I read it from cover to cover - not something I always do. I’m a slow reader and some books I just don’t have the will to ‘jog up the hill’ to finish (did you see what I did there??!)
I’m planning on testing out this newfound problem solving gem of a method - and my metaphor is ‘stuck between a rock and hard place’.
Thank you so much for sharing your wisdom and experience in your excellent book, Alison. So glad I had the chance to read it
I think you should too!
Never had I imagined that a seemingly ordinary book could hold such important insight into the world of problem solving. If you’re looking for a new tool to help you get unstuck and get your life back on track, then this is the book you have to read
Alison has developed a very clever method of using metaphors to help people get unstuck, and she’s called it Landscaping Your Life. It really is ingenious!!
The basis of the LYL method is that you explore the metaphor which you use to describe your stuckness to help you become unstuck. It’s an amazing idea!
For example, when you’ve missed an opportunity (e.g. you didn’t apply for that job you fancied) you may describe it as having ‘missed the tide’. What Alison does is help you put the problem aside and explore your metaphor. You create the landscape in which you’ve missed the tide and explore where you are and what your world looks like, sounds like, feels like, smells like and tastes like! By doing this it helps you uncover solutions to catching the tide next time around, or maybe even rowing out to meet it! The solutions you derive from this exploration help you find solutions to your stuckness!
One important part of this method is that you stay with your metaphorical landscape - don’t try to match your metaphor with your problem because bouncing between the two means that you’re not really focussed on either
I really enjoyed this book and I read it from cover to cover - not something I always do. I’m a slow reader and some books I just don’t have the will to ‘jog up the hill’ to finish (did you see what I did there??!)
I’m planning on testing out this newfound problem solving gem of a method - and my metaphor is ‘stuck between a rock and hard place’.
Thank you so much for sharing your wisdom and experience in your excellent book, Alison. So glad I had the chance to read it
I think you should too!
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews