Vital ingredients for successful software development: Clear requirements and trust

Edward Chalk

Collaboration

One of the four pillars of the Agile manifesto (https://agilemanifesto.org/)  is:

we have come to value:…

Customer collaboration over contract negotiation

At a basic level this means that instead of having a frigid, legal relationship between the business stakeholders and the development team, it is more constructive if they maintain a convivial relationship between them. Software development does not always proceed as planned and sometimes takes on a life and a direction of its own. If there exists a relaxed, friendly relationship between the customer and the developers, then this organic growth can happen. Otherwise, it can’t.

Various factors pose a challenge to forming a collaborative environment. For a start, there is the normal commercial tension between the supplier and the customer where each wants a “good deal”. Additionally, the business stakeholders and the development team both have different ways of thinking. 

Business stakeholders think in terms of generalities and business benefit.  “Putting up a slick e-commerce site would help boost sales.” 

Developers, on the other hand, think in specifics and look for elegant solutions. “What would be the best web development framework to use for this client’s requirements?”

Because of these differences, it is often useful to think about creating a collaborative environment as a pragmatic exercise rather than as in idealistic one.

 

Clear requirements

If there is one thing that the business stakeholders and the programmers need to agree about, that is: what the system is meant to do, what the system should look like and how the system should respond to user input. If the business stakeholders and the development team can agree on the exact system requirements then their different approaches can remain a source of reciprocal amusement, instead of becoming a project threat.

The following science-fiction short story demonstrates this reality, to an extreme that some business stakeholders would probably empathise with:

 

Isaac Asimov

“Reason” (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reason_(short_story)) is a short story by Isaac Asimov in which two astronauts are assigned to a space-station which orbits close to the sun. The purpose of the space-station is to focus a high-energy radiation beam onto a receiver placed on earth, thus supplying the earth’s total energy needs.

While the astronauts are on the space-station, the space-station control-computer comes to the conclusion that the power source of the space-ship is god, that it, the control-computer, is god’s prophet and that everything outside of the space-ship is merely an illusion and does not really exist. A new religion subsequently begins in which the robots manning the space-ship start worshipping the space-ship’s power source, with instructions on the correct mode of worship provided by its prophet, the control-computer.

A solar storm is expected, which will knock the radiation beam out of alignment, potentially threatening to incinerate populated areas on earth. The astronauts are barred by the robots from touching the ship’s controls, since they are not part of the control-computer’s religion. When the solar storm does hit, the astronauts are relieved to find that the robots maintain the exact alignment of the radiation beam. Since part of the control-computer’s religion is to maintain the measurements that indicate correct alignment of the radiation beam, the robots take the required corrective action to maintain the radiation beam’s alignment, as part of their religious obligations. This despite the robots’ belief that nothing outside of the space ship actually exists.

The astronauts realise that their job has been taken care of for them. It is irrelevant if the robots perform their function because that will enable the earth to receive energy safely, or if the robots perform their function because that is part of their religion. In summary, so long as the “system” generated the correct output, both the stakeholders (the astronauts) and the system engineers (the robots) were able to happily coexist despite their very different perspectives on what was actually happening.

Similarly with regards to software development, whereas it is vital that the business stakeholders and the developers agree what is being developed and how the software should behave, it may not be all that important for the two teams to think about the new system in the same way. If the software means increased revenue to the business stakeholders, but means a funky open source based project to the developers, that’s OK as well.

 

Software quality

If clear requirements are the linchpin of collaboration, then investing in system fidelity and quality engineering is the bane of peaceful coexistence between business stakeholders and developers. Simply put, this is because the business stakeholders just want a “result”, but the developers want to create and work on a “nice system”.

Business stakeholders couldn’t care less, on the whole, how elegantly engineered the system is. As long as the software produces the correct result, they reason, it will result in the desired business benefit. Developers, on the other hand, very much care how well engineered the system is. For a start, they want to work on a clean system because that will allow them to think naturally about the problem domain, without getting clogged down in convoluted legacy code. Secondly, the cleaner the system is, the easier it will be to extend the system in the future without anyone having to pull their hair out.

In fact, it is interesting how difficult it is for software developers to sell the idea of quality software development to business stakeholders. The same business stakeholders have no problem in understanding why they may pay more for a quality product in other areas in their lives. It is natural that a Bugatti or a Rolls Royce should cost many times more than a cheap hatchback, which can effectively do the same job. This is understandable not just because the more expensive car looks better, it is also understandable because the more expensive car is better engineered.

Why then is it so difficult for developers to sell the idea of quality software engineering to business stakeholders?

 

Universal and local quality

High quality manufactured goods are universally accepted currency. Regardless of which country you’re in, driving a Bugatti down the high street will make people’s heads turn.

The converse is true also, however. It is exactly because high quality goods are universal currency that people know that, when they buy them they’re getting a valuable, quality product. This is because our assessment of product quality relies as much on other people’s response to our ownership of that product, as it relies on our understanding of what comprises a quality product in the first place.

This rule of reflected glory breaks down in the world of software engineering, however. Software quality is very difficult to demonstrate objectively to anyone who is not working on that particular software system, and therefore you can never get that confirmatory “Ooh!” which tells you that you have indeed spent your money on a quality product.

The reason that software quality is very difficult to assess objectively is because every software system is unique in the balance required between

  • overall design simplicity and component complexity,
  • ingenuity and straightforwardness,
  • conciseness and being self explanatory and
  • data normalisation and data access complexity.

Since software quality is not demonstrable to anyone outside of the organisation that is developing the software, business stakeholders are left simply having to believe the developers concerning what constitutes quality in this particular piece of software development. 

 

Trust

It takes a great deal of trust for business stakeholders to invest time and money in software quality whose value they do not really understand. This means that ultimately business stakeholders have to acknowledge that they are not in a position to place a direct econometric measure on the value that is being generated by the development team. 

Instead of treating the software development team like a manufacturing facility, the dev team must be allowed a certain amount of breathing space. Practically speaking, this means that there must be a certain degree of disconnect between the perceived commercial value of the dev team’s output and the funding that is provided for them.

With clear requirements and an atmosphere of trust, it is possible to develop the right quality software, on time, with no-one being injured in the process.

WeWork – Reality check

Edward Chalk

My reality

Reality is a wonderful thing which can prevent people from doing things like drink-driving (“So there I was holding onto the steering wheel…”), speeding to “get there faster” and going swimming in crocodile infested creeks.

Now reality, as we all know, is relative. You have your reality and I have my reality. Your reality says that it is reasonable to speed “a bit” because you know the road blindfolded. My reality says that I should drive very carefully because the road has a sharp bends, lighting conditions are bad and I am unfamiliar with the area.

It is possible for our realities to collide. If you want to drive at 110km/h and you are stuck behind me, when I am driving at 80km/h, then you may get very frustrated and make it obvious to me that the sooner I get out of your way the better off I’ll be, regardless of the lack of an overtaking lane and the sheer drop off the side of the road.

What is interesting about this exciting (for you) experience is that we can both wind our ways home, and relate our close encounter from entirely opposite perspectives.

  • “I had this absolute lunatic tailgating me on the B234 when there was no way I could pull to the side to let him take over.”
  • “I had this absolute idiot in front of me all the way home driving like he had all the time in the world when he knew I wanted to get past.”

What is even more interesting is that, as long as we do not frequent the same pub, both complaints will attract the same number of ooh’s and aah’s, and we will both go home feeling happy and vindicated. It is only if we frequent the same pub that our conflicting points of view may result in words and actions that do neither of us any good.

 

Our reality

Just as every person perceives reality from their own perspective, so too does every group of people form its own version of reality. Whether that group of people comprises a company, a club, a special interest group or a country, there are unwritten rules that define how that group will evaluate people internal to that society, people external to that society and also things in general.

These unwritten rules define what is valued and what is discarded, what is an accomplishment and what is a failure, what is cool and what is trite and so on. A society can have a holistic view of reality which promotes benign behaviour, or a society can have a highly selective view of reality which encourages behaviour that may appear bizarre to the casual observer.

For Vikings, a nice day out may be spent plundering and pillaging. For classic pop music lovers, a nice day out may be spent listening to someone wondering whether or not this is the real world.

Both the Vikings and the music lovers will feel uplifted and refreshed at the end of the day, because they have both accomplished something of value which they feel is vitally important for the continued well being of “society”. Additionally, both the Vikings and also the classic pop music lovers feel that what they do makes sense, because within each group the thinking of that group is internally consistent.

  • “It makes sense to go plundering and pillaging.”
  • “It makes sense to listen to someone wondering whether or not this is the real world.”

However for Vikings, music-lover-logic is insanity (you could just plunder and pillage the person who is wondering whether or not this is the real world, instead of listening to him singing). And for music lovers, Viking-logic is insanity (so unreal, man).

In other words, just as your reality may make sense to you, but not to me, so can that which “makes sense” within a society not make sense (i.e not be logically consistent) outside of that society, and vice versa. In fact what “makes sense” within a society is often the absolute opposite of what “makes sense” outside of that society.

This is because, just like people, every society has a specific way of seeing things, i.e. a specific way of fitting together the myriad experiences and artefacts that make our experience of “life” into a coherent whole. And that which “makes sense” is that which fits into this holistic – but localised – pattern.

 

Reality incorporated

Modern socio-cultural corporations deliberately create their own self-contained “society”. This means that corporations effectively create an internal micro-culture in which the following “reality” applies:

  • The company is immutably “good”.
  • The company’s products and services are a source of “goodness” to society. (This applies even to products such as gambling services and tobacco.)
  • Because the company is “good”, and because the company’s products are a source of “goodness”, therefore it is the moral imperative of the company’s employees to work towards the success of the company and to facilitate the stream of quality products and services which the company “provides” to its customers.

In order to become a “part” of the company, employees are expected to buy into this self-contained “reality” and to live (at least when at work) according to its dictates.

 

Market buy in

The interaction between the inner company culture and the culture of the customer base depends on the type of product being sold:

  • Basic utility products: Products that provide a basic utility value, e.g. bread.
    For this class of product there is little or no interaction between the company culture and the consumer base. If I buy a loaf of bread, I have not bought into the company that produced that loaf of bread. I do not have a “relationship” with the bakery.

 

  • Products that combine functionality and an “idea”: Products that combine basic utility value with some thoughtfulness, e.g. fashion clothing.
    In addition to providing the protective function of clothing, fashion clothing also makes a statement about the wearer. The fashion clothing communicates the lifestyle intended by the fashion designer, with which the wearer has chosen to self-identify.
    For this class of product there is likely to be considerable overlap between the inner company culture (at least that of the design department) and the consumer mentality. Just as employees are socialised to believe that “our clothes are stunning”, so too, when customers purchase the company’s clothes, they do so because they “believe” in the feel-good aura that is advertised by the company.

 

  • Ideation products: Products that primarily consist of a sophisticated idea that is meant to enhance the “life” of the consumer. The idea (e.g. social networking) is “sold” together with an ancillary product (in this case, social networking software) that allows the implementation of that idea.
    For this class of product, when the consumer buys the product, they also subconsciously buy into the thinking behind the product. “This is going to work for me.” By extension, the consumer also buys into the company culture that created the idea. In other words the customer agrees, to a certain extent, to perceive reality through the eyes of the company.

In short: Bread does not make a statement. Fashion does make a statement. Social networking is the way in which I make statements.

 

New technology take-up

The market for innovative technological products is taken to be comprised of five demographics which differ in their thirst for new technology:

  • Innovators: People who love innovation for its own sake and who will buy a new product exactly because it’s new.
  • Early adopters: People who have an objective understanding of the benefits of the new technology and are willing to give it a go because they think it could work for them.
     
  • Early majority: People who will start using new technology once they see it becoming mainstream.
  • Late majority: People who are skeptical about technological innovation but who eventually follow along with the crowd.
  • Laggards: People who are positively averse to change.

It is generally understood that if a new technological product has been adopted by the innovators and the early adopters, then it is only a matter of time till the product spreads through the entire market. The early majority, the late majority and the laggards will eventually follow in the path of those who embrace change.

However, the idea-functionality class of the new product will influence the purchasing decisions of the more conservative demographics.

 

Market take up pattern for ideation products

If a technological innovation has some essentially useful functionality, then although the conservative demographics will be put off by the newness of the product, at the same time they are also attracted by the product’s fundamental usefulness. Therefore once the product enters mainstream use and is no longer quite so new, its usefulness will surpass its novelty and the staid market sector will start buying.

However, for ideation products whose entire sell is that it is “a new way of doing things”, the product may be totally irrelevant to the later demographics.

Although the idea (and associated technology) is useful to the more progressive demographics, that is because their personal culture was already fundamentally in sync with the culture of the company that produced the idea. Therefore the idea is cogent for them and enhances their lifestyle. However, for conservative people to whom the company’s progressive culture is foreign, the idea may have no functional value and may actually be contraindicated. 

In other words, an ideation product may be of negative value (“worse than useless”) for people who are external to the culture in which the idea originated. In this case there is no essential value and usefulness for the conservative demographics, because to the contrary, it would be detrimental for this demographic to adopt either the idea or the thinking behind the idea.

 

Permission to disagree

If you work for a high-tech startup, it would be extremely career limiting to voice your doubts about the wonderfulness of the startup’s products. This is because, although the startup’s founders may be aware of the functional limitations of their products, it is unlikely that they are aware of the limited scope in which their ideas apply.

Therefore for a product whose primary content is the idea inherent in the product, it may be impossible to honestly evaluate the potential of the product, from within the company.

In this case, if the market takes its cues from the optimistic mood and the thinking within the company, it may be following a very distorted view of reality.

Emotions, thought and sunlight

Edward Chalk

Our star, the sun, is powered by a massive nuclear furnace at its core. The energy generated in the sun’s core travels from the core through the radiative zone, to the outer surface of the sun. From the outer surface of the sun, the sun radiates this energy as light and as other forms of electromagnetic radiation. When light from the sun reaches the part of the earth on which we are standing, then we say “The sun is shining.”

The distance from the sun’s core to the outer surface of the sun is approximately 550,000 kilometres, so it should take the energy generated in the sun’s core 1.8 seconds to get from the sun’s core to the sun’s surface. However in reality it can hundreds of years for a photon (the smallest unit of electromagnetic radiation) to get from the sun’s core to the surface of the sun.

This is because as the photon travels from the sun’s core through the convection layer of the sun, it keeps on bumping into atoms which absorb the photon, and which subsequently re-emit the photon in a random direction. Because the photon keeps on changing direction, it takes a long time to travel a relatively short distance.

 

Like the sun

In a sense, the way in which we experience emotion and thought is analogous to the way the sun creates and radiates energy and light.

  • We have an emotional furnace at our core where we form emotions and feelings. In this inner emotional world we do not think or use words. That means to say that our inner feelings are not experienced verbally, instead we sense them as a part of the very fabric of our being and of our becoming.
  • We have faculties of thought where we process knowledge and information. When we think, we use words and imagery in order to make calculations, to gain intuition and to learn by making comparisons. Eventually when we come to a conclusion, we decide what to say and what actions to take. Just like the sun radiates energy from its surface, so too we use words and actions to convey our emotions and feelings to the people with whom we interact.
  • Between our inner emotional core and our faculties of verbal thought, we have a emotion-to-thought transference zone. Within our emotion-to-thought transference zone, we connect our inner wordless emotions with the real life things and people with which we associate our emotions. Making this connection allows us to formulate the thoughts that will allow us to actualise and demonstrate our feelings.

    Conversely also, our transference zone is capable of transforming words and information into inner emotions. This happens when we convert the stimuli that we experience and the words that are spoken to us, into inner emotions and feelings. In other words, our transference zone is where we decide what the world means to us and how we will convey our meaning to the world.

    Just as it takes a long time for energy to travel from the sun’s core to the sun’s surface, so too it can take us a long time to decide how to embody our emotions in thoughts, in words and in actions.

What exactly happens in our emotion-to-thought transference zone, and how do we convert wordless emotional energy into verbal thoughts and ideas?

Icons

There are some things about which we feel so deeply, that when we are asked to explain exactly why we feel so deeply about these things, we are unable to expand any further and we simply reiterate our feelings.

  • “Why is your family so important to you?” – “It just is.”
  • “Why is your football team so important to you?” – “It just is.”
  • “Why is nature so important to you?” – “It just is.”

These are the things which we live for, and in some cases, are prepared to die for. These are the things which may we spend our entire lives bringing to fruition and making a reality. Because these icons are so important to us, the concern that we feel for them lives in the depths of our hearts and is ingrained into the very fabric of our being.

At a psychological level, because our icons are so deeply rooted within our consciousnesses, they are the first material thing that we perceive when we look out at the world from within our inner selves. Our icons are the first reality that we encounter on the journey from our inner world to the world at large. Hence we come to associate our inner emotions with these iconic realities.

On the other hand, since our icons are actual tangible things, we formulate verbal thoughts that address the complexities which we face in making our icons become a reality. In this way, our icons form the bridge between our inner emotional world and our verbally based thought processes.

Harmony and success

Successful people are often those who have aligned their inner emotional core, their life-ideals and their thoughts and actions. Because they have achieved this level of harmony and personal unity, they are able to apply their entire energy and drive to achieving the goals that are important for them.

In order to achieve this level personal unity, there must be harmony between our inner emotional core, our verbal thoughts and ideas, and our iconic life endeavours.

To accomplish this state we can

  • Think about what our iconic life endeavours are, what they mean to us and how we can bring them to fruition.
  • Make sure that we are working towards this goal, however long that will take us.
  • Make sure we are not doing anything contradictory to our long term goals, however attractive the short term gains may appear to be.

By treasuring our primary beliefs and our core values, we can achieve inner harmony, a sense of purpose, focussed personal energy and ultimately success.

 

Homework

Think about one ideal which you treasure above all else. Determine if you are working towards making your icon into a reality or if you have become sidetracked. Set yourself measurable goals and celebrate together with friends when you accomplish them.

Beauty therapy

Edward Chalk 3 Comments

In the normal course of events, we have times in which we feel happy and stress free, and times in which we feel down and worried. One of the main differences between our happy state and our down state is that in our happy state we have an expansive consciousness. We are aware of the sky, the passing clouds, bird song, children’s laughter and the smile on the bus conductor’s face.

In our down state however, the world shrinks until it is no larger than the patch of pavement on which we are walking, and sometimes it is not even as large as that. We close in on ourselves and become locked into a very small world that has no room for happiness and laughter.

We tend to oscillate between these two states, to a greater or lesser extent. A positive experience will boost us into our bright expansive mode, a negative experience will send us tail spinning into our inner straights.

How we can increase our propensity to be aware of the joyous tinkle of life, and stay away from the doom zone?

 

Beauty

Upon reflection, many of the experiences wherein we feel the spirit of life, are experiences that we would describe as beautiful. Being aware of the sky and the passing clouds, hearing bird song, watching children’s laughter and seeing the smile on the bus conductor’s face, are all experiences to which we could apply the word beautiful as an adjective.

Let us assume then, that experiencing beauty makes us feel positive and alive. Subsequently it should follow that if we make a conscious effort to associate ourselves with beauty by seeking out beautiful experiences and by increasing our awareness and appreciation of them, that we will thereby enhance our “up” state and increase the length of time for which we are our great happy selves.

But what exactly is beauty?

 

Natural balance

It is often very hard to put a finger on exactly why we find something beautiful so evocative. A glorious sunset or a field full of of wildflowers can bring happiness into our hearts in a way that makes the whole world seem a more cheerful place. There is something in these scenes that resonates within us and which says, “Life’s not as bad as that, let’s look forward to a bright new tomorrow.”

But where does that cheerful voice come from?

In a sense, beauty is an expression of the essential healthfulness and vivacity of the natural world. When we experience and appreciate beauty, we align ourselves with the harmonious balance of which that beauty is representative. By internalising beauty, we internalise the glowing harmonious balance at its source, and through this internalisation, we are transported to the world in which that harmony exists.

For example, when we perceive the backlit multi-hued clouds of a spectacular sunset, we are transported to the world of wide vistas and serenity that exists beyond the confines of the tower blocks which we call home. When we perceive the beauty of a wildflower, we are transported to the world of primal colour and design which is formed from the elemental building blocks of earth, sunlight and rain. A world which is far removed from cereal that grows on supermarket shelves and from milk that comes from plastic bottles.

The world’s raw beauty is an interface through which we connect to the goodness and vitality of the natural world.

 

Artificiality

As natural beings, our mood is synchronised with the cycles of the primal world. We are influenced by the cycle of the seasons, by the constant change between day and night, by feeling sunshine and rain, wind and snow, by seeing the new growth of the forest, and by smelling the sweet smell of earth and listening to the rushing water of the river after it has rained.

In the modern world, we are alienated from these cyclical influences. Street lighting and electricity blur the difference between day and night. Air conditioning blurs the difference between winter and summer. Digital clocks control our schedule by the hour and the second, and blot out our awareness of the passage of the sun across the sky. And the vast expanse of the tarmac and concrete cities in which we live, dulls our connection to the earth and its mysterious vitality.

The more artificial our lives become, the further we grow away from the life force that fills every detail of nature. And the further we grow away from nature’s life force, the further we grow away from our own inner natural life force, for we too are part of nature. We are born to be as natural and vital, but we are trained to see no further than the house across the street, to look no higher than the skyscrapers in the CBD, to venture into no greater jungle than the city streets and to hunt for food with a credit card.

Eventually we formulate a plastic self image of our artificial veneers, we make life decisions which are incongruous with the sweet well springs of inner life and finally we wonder why we are not “feeling well”.

 

Homework

Find something natural which is not a product of man’s efforts. This natural thing does not necessarily need to be something of “outstanding natural beauty”. It could be as simple as filaments of moss growing on a tree stump, a pretty pebble on a beach or a flower growing where no-one ever planted it.

Pause for a moment to ponder what you have found, and use it as a gateway to connect to the natural and unaffected world which it comes from. After a day, a week or a month, go back and ponder the same item again. Think about the deep calm and the natural balance of nature, and then compare this mood with the experiences you have had since you first pondered on this corner of the natural world.

Was all that stress worth it? Are we taking life too seriously and missing out on what really counts? Are we missing out on opportunities for personal satisfaction and fulfilment that will never again repeat themselves so that we can get ahead in the concrete jungle?

Take a step back, and wonder.

 

I am OK – OK’ness and personal growth

Edward Chalk

The big print

I am OK

This applies

  • Regardless of what I do or do not know.

  • Regardless of whether or not I have a job.

  • Regardless of how much I earn.

  • Regardless of my looks or of how attractive I am.

  • Regardless of anything people may say about me.

  • Regardless of how well I relate to people and of how socially adept I am.

The small print

I am OK as is

Every person in the world is formed by the unique set of circumstances in which they grew up, the unique set of experiences they have been exposed to, their unique capabilities, their unique way of perceiving the world and their unique way of thinking and feeling.

OK’ness means that I am OK just the way I am, and I do not need to change or become like anyone else in order to be OK.

In other words, my OK’ness means that every single part of me is OK. I do not need to delete any part of me or change any of my thoughts, feelings or opinions because someone else thinks that it is not-OK for me to be like that.

I am a package deal, either like all of me or pass me by (and that’s fine as well).

I am unconditionally OK

People look for reassurance of their OK’ness when they are feeling down, which often happens when they are “losing the race of life”. However, it is equally important not to fall into the trap of conditional OK’ness.

If we feel OK only because we are winning at the game of life then we are hiding not-OK’ness behind our accomplishments. By making our OK’ness dependent on a winning streak, we are saying to ourselves, “In reality I am not-OK, but because I can prove to the people around me how good I am, I can live off their positive impression of me and I can trick myself into feeling OK.”

Besides being unfulfilling, this attitude is also not very practical. If we make our OK’ness conditional on continuing success, then our happiness depends on other people’s actions, on favourable circumstances and on getting it right every time. However, life has its ups and downs and it is unreasonable to assume that we will go on surfing the wave of success always and forever. If we only feel OK because we are riding a high, that places tremendous pressure on us to stay on a high, because we cannot fail under any circumstances. This pressure is likely to take its toll on our relationships, on our health and on the people around us.

Sure it is important to be successful, and success brings happiness and fulfillment. However our success must augment our OK’ness, not act as a smokescreen for feelings of unworthiness and insignificance.

I can give myself a pat on the back because I achieved something significant, or because I made someone happy, or because I gave away something precious to a cause that I believed in. But I cannot be OK only because of something that I did, rather my OK’ness is absolute and unquestionable.

OK’ness creates energy

OK’ness means that I am a living, pulsating, growing person who is in harmony with the world and with the people around me. OK’ness means that I can be down and out, but I am still worth something. OK’ness means that every single part of me is valid, beautiful and acceptable, whatever anyone thinks or says.

OK’ness means that I am utterly OK without reference to any personal accomplishment or acclaim. And my OK’ness fills me with energy, with laughter and with joy, which I share with the world and with the people around me.

Suggested growth plan

We grow the most by facing our challenges and proving to ourselves that we can overcome the obstacles that previously seemed insurmountable.

Think about a situation in which you tend to feel not OK, then think about how you would ideally be able to manage the situation. Think about the point at which you assume a not-OK attitude, and then decide that you will remain OK when that point of decision arrives, you will face the situation and you will win.

Looking out from the house you can see acres upon acres of farmland, with sheep and highland cattle grazing on it. In the spring, new born lambs run around next to their mothers, charging underneath them to drink the milk, their little tails wagging excitedly.


The mountains reach so high the tops are swallowed up by the clouds, like stepping stones up to the gods themselves. The ocean with shades of deep blue hails the sun’s rays as they shimmer like diamonds on the water. The breeze sails through the grass, reviving this wild, beautiful land…


I couldn’t recognise who I was, but here I could see myself again. The world looked magical once more and I held onto this euphoric paradise as tight as I could. But the more I relaxed, the more I realised I couldn’t stay here forever. I couldn’t just run away as much as I wanted. I had to go back and face everything that had made me so sad for so long. I needed to face those dark times and hold my head up bloody high. I think at this point I realised I had grown up. Running away from bad situations is an easy thing to do. It’s painless. Happier. The real difficult task is going back to that same dark prison, and fighting it head on. Standing up to the demons that haunted you for so long and saying “Look at how strong I am, stronger than you ever will be.”

The Broken, By Siobhan Mackenzie

By consciously maintaining a state of OK’ness you can release the strength, positivity, constructiveness and creativity which will allow you to transcend the constricting feelings that are hemming you in.

Decide, overcome, feel good about your accomplishment and then look for your next growth challenge.

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