Can't See the Wood for the Trees?

A guide to using the metaphorical language of a “stuck” situation to discover the solution.

Can't See the Wood for the Trees? shares an easy, fun process of exploring well-known sayings as a means to identify new solutions and get unstuck in life and work. It 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.

The book 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 you: 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.