Where I walk my dog in the morning there is a colony of crows. Recently they have been nest building, a task that I find fascinating. I can see how they manage once they have the foundations in. A decent amount of sticks woven into a platform from which they can build upwards in relative safety. But how do they start? How do they choose where to put the first stick or get the first one to stay where they want it? It’s a task that seems daunting to me, overwhelmingly difficult, where to begin?
I watch them while my dog completes her morning sniffs. One crow brings a fairly long stick and lands near its partner. I’m not a crow expert, I have no idea which are the males and which are the females. The first crow with the stick fiddles around putting it in different places, often for some time, and then, if it’s taking too long, or I guess if the second crow thinks it’s not quite right, it lends a beak and they wrestle with the stick together until they are satisfied. Then the first crow goes off to get another stick and so they build, one stick at a time.
It made me think about facing seemingly impossible tasks and the suffocating, breathless feeling of overwhelm and what a good lesson it is to break down a whole problem into individual sticks. Just focusing on getting the first part in place and working at that one thing until it’s done, no matter how hard it is. Often the crows drop a stick, but they just fly off to find another. That one foundation stick is the beginning of the journey to building a nest, completing the whole task, solving the whole problem. One stick at a time. It’s a great way to look at what you want, or need, to achieve - break it down into small manageable chunks and focus on getting each one done instead of staring at the whole task ahead of you.
Two other things I noticed from the crows, they weren’t looking around at the nests that were more completed than their own. They didn’t ‘compare and despair’. They just focused on their own nest building journey.
And the second thing was that each crow had a fellow crow to help them out when they got stuck. No matter how overwhelmed we feel in life there is ALWAYS someone to turn to, someone who cares - whether it is someone you already know; a friend, family member, colleague or someone you have yet to reach out to; a Samaritan, counsellor or coach.
The hardest part is often admitting you could do with some help, that’s your first stick. Take a deep breath, look up from your problem and reach out. Then you too can start to conquer your task, build your nest, one stick at a time.
Photo by Pauline Bernfeld on Unsplash