Turn Obstacles into Opportunities

Rochelle Melander

As a coach, I work with people who want to overcome obstacles to write. Usually we work together to find a way around or through the obstacle. Makes sense, right? We can’t achieve our goal with that huge obstacle in the way.

But I had a new view on obstacles this week.

We visited The Art Institute of Chicago and saw, Matisse’s Jazz: Rhythms in Color, the 1947 limited-edition artist’s book.

When the painter Matisse was in his early 70s, he had abdominal surgery that left him wheelchair bound. He could no longer stand at the easel to paint.

But this obstacle became an opportunity for him when he stopped fighting it or trying to get around it and instead worked with it.

Matisse re-discovered painting with scissors. He took paper painted with gouache and cut it into lively shapes. He’d used the technique before, mainly to “block out” or design larger compositions.

But now, the cut-outs were no longer just the means to the art, the cut-outs became the art itself.

He wrote

“The paper cut-outs allow me to draw with color. For me, it is a simplification. Instead of drawing an outline and then filling in with color—with one modifying the other—I draw directly in color . . . It is not a starting point, it is a completion.”

As Matisse experimented with this new technique, he had his assistants pin cutouts on the wall. That led him to create larger wall-sized pieces.

After seeing the exhibit, I wondered: what would happen for my clients if they worked with the obstacles to achieve their goals?

Maybe you’re a writer living in a season with little time to write. What if you played with creating shorter pieces?

Maybe you’re a burned-out academic who wants to write a book for fun but you need tenure. How could you “play” while working on your tenure-tract project?

Take a look at your life and consider:

+How could this obstacle lead you in a new direction?

+How could the obstacle support you?

+How could you work with the obstacle?

Reach out to me if you need support imagining how this obstacle might become your path to enormous growth!