I was feeling really stuck recently. I kept thinking about this thing over and over, drilling down into why it was so hard. The more I did that, the worse I felt. It became clear I wasn't going to get unstuck on my own, so I reached out to a friend.

 

I shared with my friend a little bit about what I was feeling stuck about and asked him if he could offer some questions to help me think about it differently. Questions I wasn't already asking myself.

 

The questions he offered caused me to zoom way out in my thinking. I was so zoomed in on all of the little details, that I had no clarity. The gift of the zoomed out questions caused all kinds of new thinking for me! Not everything was crystal clear yet but I had ideas of what to do. I felt so much lighter!

 

Here's what I noticed: I'd been zoomed in so tight I'd lost all perspective.

 

“The frames of our minds define—and confine—what we perceive to be possible.” (Rosamund Stone Zander & Benjamin Zander, The Art of Possibility)

 

Help people see the possibilities! Pose questions to help them zoom out to see the bigger picture! The opposite can also be effective - if people are zoomed out, help them to zoom in.

 

Notice when people get stuck. Are they zoomed in? Zoomed out? What question might give them a new frame?