One of the things I enjoyed most about our recent volunteer building project in the Eastern Cape was the opportunities for me to learn more about myself, to learn more about collaboration and co-creation, and to push my mental, emotional and physical agility a little further.

Africa is a strange and complex and beautiful place and life in Africa is certainly very, very different to the average lifestyle in the Western developed world. And while I can’t say that we had a truly authentic African experience (ours was much, much more comfortable!), as we moved closer to experiencing the African lifestyle, and further from our own comfort zones and what’s familiar to us, each of us in the team had the opportunity to discover how we deal with difference, physical discomfort, inconvenience and situations where life isn’t going as we think it should and people aren’t behaving as we think they should.

There were the Eastern Cape roads that “should” have been better managed so that you didn’t have to dodge potholes, people, overcrowded and unsafe taxis and wandering livestock; there were the building materials that “should” have arrived months before we arrived, so that the building site would be fully prepared and ready to make the best use of our time and energy; there was the food that was prepared for us by local women which “should” have been less starchy, more tasty, more substantial and more nutritional; there was the building site manager who “should” have had a better plan that took account of the order in which tasks needed to be completed so that nobody ever stood around wasting time; there was the fact that there “should” have been two or three more experienced building managers on site to show the inexperienced volunteers how to complete their tasks correctly so that our lone building manager didn’t get over-stretched and stressed out; there was the safety gear that “should” have arrived on time but only arrived a few days after we started building; there was the tools which “should” have been organized and stored in a more orderly fashion so you knew where to find the tools you needed when you needed them; there was the fact that there “should” have been more tools; there was the accommodation that we stayed in that “should” have been kept cleaner by other team members; there were rats, cockroaches, flies and mosquitoes that “shouldn’t” be indoors where we need to eat and sleep; there was the tap water that “should” have been clean and safe for drinking; there was the fact that we really “should” have had more than one toilet and shower for 12 to 15 volunteers; there was the electricity that “should” have worked consistently, and the list goes on…

At various stages during the project, each of us felt annoyed at the disjunct between how we thought things “should” be and how things actually were, and frustrated that the resources, material comforts and leadership that we thought we needed to be able to make the contribution we wanted to make weren’t available to us and that the plans we had were being thwarted. When you don’t like the hand of cards you’ve been dealt - when things aren’t going as they “should,” then the way I see it, you have two options:

1. Try to bargain for a better hand.

You can dogmatically and determinedly stick to your previous plan, your rules and your standards and resist the reality that sits in front of you by continuing to insist that circumstances “should” be like this and “shouldn’t” be like that. In impro they call this strategy “blocking” or “no, butting.” Instead of running with and creatively responding to what the universe is offering you, you block it and say, “No, I don’t want that. I can’t use that…” and “But this shouldn’t happen/ I should have what I wanted instead because…(insert all your reasons).” Instead of being present to noticing and learning about the reality of what is, you’re off in the future, attached to the vision you’d planned or you’re off in the past, pointing fingers of blame at the people and things that you think might have caused the bad hand you’ve been dealt and muttering that they shouldn’t have done what they did.

When you have a lot of rules for how things “should” be in order for you to be happy, to create the experiences you want in life and to make your contribution, then you limit your happiness and your contribution in the world. Your big book of rules of how things “should” be will draw you into focusing on trying to change things and other people that you don’t have much control over and on trying to accumulate and store the material things that you’re telling yourself you need in order to be happy. And this will make your life heavy and slow and less easy to re-direct in response to changing circumstances and opportunities and your own changing desires. This is the antithesis of Agile Living.

So much of personal development, goal-setting and productivity teaching advocates for a stubborn approach to creating what you want: decide what you want, make it very specific and then pursue that with total focus, determination and persistence until you make it happen. This is one of the things I get uncomfortable about when it comes to traditional goal-setting, because it’s a formula for living a life of stress, frustration and anger. I felt the frustration and stress in myself as I noticed myself wanting to cling to certain ideas of how things “should” be while we were on our project in the Eastern Cape, and I saw it in other team members. The more persistently we clung to our “shoulds,” the more pain and frustration we created for ourselves. As Byron Katie says, “When you argue with reality, reality always wins” - and that’s a pretty stressful and disempowering experience to give yourself!

2. Play the cards you’ve been dealt

Instead of requiring the world around you to change so that you can be happy and make the contribution you want to make, just be happy and make whatever contribution you can make with what you have right now.

A big part of “Agile Living” is the idea of unrestrained freedom to feel the way you want to feel and to expand and make your contribution, in spite of the risks, obstacles, limitations, constraints and imperfections within your environment and circumstances. It’s the ability to exercise your power, creativity, leadership and resourcefulness to improvise and create the experiences you want using the cards you’re dealt, rather than getting sucked into trying to figure out how you can change the cards you’ve been dealt to a better hand before you make your contribution.

In the impro world, this is referred to as “accepting an offer” or saying “yes, and…” When you’re willing to play the hand of cards you’ve been dealt, you’re not wasting valuable energy on trying to change things that you have little control over. Instead, you’re focusing your creative energy on changing and creating stuff that’s in your domain of control, starting with choosing to feel the way you want to feel, regardless of the circumstances around you. Saying “Yes, and…” isn’t just about accepting everything that life offers and never trying to change anything in your environment. It’s about starting where you are, rather than trying to start somewhere that would be an easier place to start from. And it’s about accepting what life is offering you as the starting point and then being willing to take responsibility for improvising and exercising your creativity and genius by saying, “Yes, I accept this offer, AND… here’s how I’m going to build on it and use it to create more of the life I want.”

When we were willing to play the cards we were dealt, it was amazing how the mood lifted in our team, we had much more fun and we were immediately more productive. When we started saying “Yes, and…” we started to come up with genius ways of improving the taste of our food (Mrs Balls chutney on everything!), we found jobs we could do while we waited for the building site manager to become available to explain how to do the next job, we initiated leadership on tasks when we saw that there was nobody else to lead, we got out of bed at 5:30am and went for a nice walk instead of lying in bed trying to swat the millions of flies so that we could go back to sleep, we laughed about our frustrations, we initiated more team conversations and let our needs be known, and we took pictures of the cows drinking from the potholes in the road knowing that it would make a good story to share with our friends and family back home, instead of complaining that the traffic was being help up.

The fewer rules, criteria and needs that you feel have to be met for you to be happy and to make your contribution, the easier you make it to be happy and to make your contribution. Agile Living is about dropping that baggage and the expensive need to keep an inventory of all the raw materials and resources that you’ve been thinking you need before you can make your contribution. Agile Living is about being willing to live light and lean, to trust that you already have all the resources you need inside of you and that you can employ those resources “just in time” when required, to step up and lead yourself and others when leadership is lacking, and to improvise and creatively respond using the cards you’ve been dealt, to create more of the life you want.

Our building project in pictures: what we noticed and focused on when we held onto our “shoulds”

What we noticed and focused on when we dropped our “shoulds” and started responding with “Yes, and…”

So I’m really curious: have you had any experiences where you’ve been frustrated that things didn’t go as the “should”? How do you deal with that? What are your tips for agile living when things and people just don’t seem to be going the way you think they should?