What I Learned from Puzzles During Lockdown
During lockdown in Melbourne, Aus, while restrictions have become stricter I have found myself trying to find new ways to spend my time, away from the screen. One of the new ways is through completing puzzles.
Recently as I was piecing together a 1000 piece puzzle I realized it was a great representation of life as a whole. What do I mean by that? Simply put your life is one big puzzle with several smaller pieces that you have to put together.
Here are a few things I learned from assembling puzzles during lockdown:
Goals
When you start a puzzle, most people begin it with the goal of finishing it, putting all the pieces together. It’s important in life to have goals that you can work towards. Goals can be easily set on a weekly, monthly, or yearly basis. It’s important once you accomplish a goal that you set new ones to keep your momentum strong.
Focus
When you’re trying to put a puzzle together, it’s much more efficient to work on one area at a time and focus on finding those pieces. If you jump around from one area to another your brain will get overwhelmed and you won’t get much accomplished. In life when you focus on one goal at a time you’ll find it much easier to accomplish. If you try to do a million things at once you’ll likely fail.
Don’t Be Afraid to Try New Things
Sometimes when you find a piece you think it’s the perfect piece and it will fit right into the spot you’ve been eyeing. You can’t assume that. You have to take the piece and see if it fits and only once you try can you say if it’s the right piece or not. Just like in life, try new things to see if you like them and if you do keep them around if you don’t at least you tried!
Deception
Have you ever tried to put the puzzle piece right where you think it goes, to find it fits in with the other pieces perfectly but it doesn’t quite align with the bigger picture? Sometimes in life, we find small wins that we feel at the time are right. Later in hindsight, we might find the solution we thought we had wasn’t the right one. That’s okay. It’s okay for things to change and you to shift up your progress.
So in 2020 while you might feel all the pieces of your puzzle of life are falling apart remember the importance of having goals, focusing on them. Try new things and don’t be afraid to fail. Most importantly if you make a few wrong choices here and there give yourself grace and remember there’s another piece of the puzzle that will help you piece together your life.