For the last few weeks, I’ve been having fun putting together a puzzle of Winnie the Pooh and friends celebrating his birthday. In addition to some fun, stress relief, and bit of a challenge, it’s also taught or reminded me of some valuable life lessons. Here are some of the ways that puzzling is helping me solve other problems in life.
- It’s important to take breaks. Except for one day in which I had fun puzzling for about two hours straight, I only puzzle for about half an hour at most each day. Some days it’s only a few minutes. Occasionally, I’ll puzzle for a bit, pause to do something else, and then return to the puzzle later. Aside from helping me avoid stress and feel better if some stress has arisen, I almost always have a breakthrough when returning to the puzzle after a break. Those breaks also keep me from getting sick of puzzling. I do my best to take breaks as needed in other areas of my life as well. This can be tricky sometimes, such as at work. Still, I’ve come up with ways of pausing for a minute or two, which is sometimes all I need to clear my head, relieve stress, and get back to working effectively, usually more effectively than when I felt stressed before the break. It’s much easier to take breaks in my free time. It seems like puzzling has made me more inclined to take breaks sooner rather than later; stopping before I feel extremely stressed means I can return to an activity much faster than if my stress levels go through the roof. I’m glad of that reminder and the way it has allowed me to show up as a better me to almost everything I do now.
- A bit of progress over time will get me a long, long way. At 1,000 pieces, this might be the biggest puzzle I’ve worked on by myself. Some days, the pieces seem to magically find their places. Other days, it’s a struggle to place even one piece. Still, working on it a bit each day will eventually give me a completed puzzle. Making huge progress from a few small steps a day is most notably seen with the healing I’ve experienced in the nearly 4 years since my dog Sawyer died. Almost all the pain is gone, and the remaining pain is miniscule. I’m so glad I stuck with the process even in the days, weeks, and even months when progress seemed slow to nonexistent. All that work paid off handsomely and has given me a much more peaceful life.
- Skills can improve quickly with practice. This is the first puzzle I recall working on in many years. I also don’t recall working on many puzzles during my upbringing. Still, I’m finding it easier as I go to figure out where the pieces fit. Sometimes I can see a piece by itself and instantly recognize where it belongs without any conscious thought or effort. It’s astonishing to me how quickly that skill has improved, and it makes me wonder how it’ll translate to the next puzzle I have in line (which is also related to Winnie the Pooh). It also reminds me of how I’ve seen fairly quick progress with certain skills in life, such as swing dancing. From the time I started dancing every week in mind-2017, it took a little over a year for me to become better than I ever imagined possible. Even with a skill such as unicycling that took me way longer to master, I still saw some seasons of swift improvement. That’s always lovely to see and makes me want to keep working at whatever I’m doing.
- Sometimes getting one or two key pieces in place will make everything nearby come together. The more puzzle pieces I correctly assemble, the easier it becomes to assemble the remaining pieces. Aside from skill increases since I started this puzzle, there are also fewer possible places for the remaining pieces to go now that most of the pieces have been placed. Often, I’ll put one piece into place that then makes it easy to place a connecting or nearby piece. And then another. And another. And so on. Before I know it, a whole section of the puzzle is complete. The same goes for my life. As Charles Duhigg wrote about in The Power of Habit, keystone habits are seemingly simple changes that improve everything around them. Improving my emotional intelligence has been by far the best keystone habit I’ve ever found. Knowing how to release negativity has improved my work, home life, and health in all areas (mental, emotional, physical, and spiritual). Even a small change can still make a huge positive difference, and I’m glad to have made several such changes in my life.