3 Reasons Bricolage Helps You Accomplish Goals
Have a goal you want to accomplish? Bricolage can help!
Let’s talk about bricolage and how it can help you accomplish your goals.
Now, head’s up: when I talk about goals in this post, I mean YOUR goals.
Your goals can be anything: related to business, health, spirituality, fitness, creativity, etc. But I want you to read this with one specific goal in mind.
Consider how applying the concept of bricolage can help you get to your goal in a more efficient, less stressful way.
First, let’s have a quick recap of what bricolage even is (for an in-depth discussion, check out last week’s post!).
Bricolage is the concept of “making do with what’s at hand”.
While that may not sound revolutionary, the root of the word is what makes it special. The root word of bricolage means “to tinker,” which highlights that bricoleurs are resourceful and innovative in a playful way.
That is, the emphasis of bricolage falls on the creative process rather than the lack of resources.
For many of us, the shift from thinking, “I need x to accomplish y” to “I want to accomplish y, how can I get there with what I have” could be monumental.
Instead of thinking there is a “right” way, we would feel more comfortable experimenting to find a way.
P.S. I think this is increasingly hard to do when it’s so easy to Google solutions to our problems. Once you’re presented with a solution, it’s much harder to think outside of the box.
I’ve found that applying the concepts of bricolage can have significant impacts on how you perceive goal accomplishment.
My hope is that after reading this, you will be inspired to believe in yourself and your capacity. No matter how far off a goal or dream might be, it’s in reach when you have a mindset of bricolage.
Here are the three reasons bricolage can help you accomplish your goals:
1. Bricolage gives you the freedom to dream
Nothing will throw off your goal-accomplishing game more than letting yourself think, “But I need x in order to do y.”
If you let yourself believe that there is only one way to get to your destination, you are less likely to get there. And the reverse is true, too.
If you let yourself fall into the thought pattern of “I have x, so all I can do is y,” you will be limiting your capacity to dream.
However, if you’re a bricoleur, you see multiple possibilities and options for every problem you encounter. You see the world through a lens of opportunity rather than scarcity.
So many of us rule ourselves out of accomplishing goals because we’re afraid we don’t have what it takes.
To practice bricolage means that you are comfortable with dreaming beyond your current limits.
I used to be one of the most technology inept people ever.
Nothing about computers had really appealed to my until I discovered the world of blogs nearly 6 years ago. I became fascinated. I bookmarked several blogs that inspired me and I checked them every day to see if the authors had shared anything new.
Eventually, I let myself dream the dream: I wanted to create a blog.
Today, such a goal would be quite easy to accomplish with all of the incredibly easy-to-use website building tools that exist. At the time I first created my blog it was pretty easy too, but my personal lack of tech savvy was severe.
I let myself believe that even though I didn’t have the tech skills at the moment, I did have other assets. I was a good researcher, I had original ideas, I was a good writer, etc. I wasn’t sure how long it would take me to successfully create a blog I was proud of, but I knew that my computer skills were just a hurdle, not a true barrier to my goal.
2. Bricolage motivates you to seek out the necessary resources
The second reason bricolage helps you accomplish goals is directly related to the first.
It motivates you to seek out the resources you need to learn, create and make your goal happen.
Bricoleurs make do with what they have at hand, which means sometimes they put in more work. You might not have the funds to invest in a specialized course or advisor, but you know how to hunt down tools, workshops or books that teach you the skills you need.
If you believe there are multiple paths to accomplishing a single outcome, you have flexibility to mix and match resources. You see value and application in ideas that others might find disparate.
In the case of creating my blog, I knew the basic things I would have to figure out to be successful. But I didn’t have a clear guide taking me from my starting point to blog launch.
I knew that to reach my goal, I needed a set timeline and a clear structure of steps to take.
So I used my education to create the organization I needed. I was getting my degree in writing, but there weren’t any courses on online writing or blogging. So I created one!
I applied for a self-study course and planned out everything I would need to learn to start and launch a new blog. The goal was that by the end of the semester, I would have a blog. And I accomplished that goal when I launched Jenuine Life.
Without a bricolage mindset, I wouldn’t have trusted that I was able to pull together a course and self-teach myself how to build a website.
It would have been easy to limit myself and think I needed an expert or professional to teach me or to do the work for me (both of which I couldn’t afford).
Don’t let your lack of resources (financial, time, space, equipment, skills, etc.) limit you from leveraging the resources you do have.
3. Bricoleurs network with purpose
This reason for why bricolage helps you accomplish goals just might be my favorite.
Bricoleurs network with purpose not just because they want to see their goal through, but because they see the potential in everyone.
This works two ways.
The first way is how bricoleurs lend themselves to the causes of others.
The second way is that they invite their community to help them accomplish their goal. This is because of their understanding that in most cases, the sum is much larger and more beautiful than its parts.
Let’s start with why bricoleurs are more likely to lend themselves to the causes of others. Bricoleurs consider that what they have to offer may be just what another person is looking for. Even if they aren’t the best or most experienced.
Too often people hold back from helping others because they doubt their own ability. They don’t know if they are “good” enough, so they don’t even offer their contribution.
This mindset hold back everyone, including yourself. Because the more you hold back from your community, the less likely your community will be willing to invest back in you.
Now let’s talk about how you can leverage your existing community to accomplish your goals.
Basically, this is the flip side of offering your skills and resources to others. Bricoleurs recognize the skills that exist in their community. They know how to bring out the best in the people around them and invite them into their projects and goals.
I found this to be true as I was writing Tell It Well. While I could have gone the route of seeking out a professional editor, I opted to leverage the skills in my close network. My sister, cousin and a close friend all had excellent editing and content skills. They became my editing team and I had the best time working with them. It wasn’t just a financial issue, either. I paid my editing team and I found it very fulfilling to give the work and payment to my personal network rather than an agency.
Without having a bricolage perspective it would have been easy to default into a scarcity mindset.
I could have focused on my lack of a professional editing agency rather than focusing on the positive things that came from working within my network.
If I would have waited until a professional agency reached out to me, Tell It Well probably still wouldn’t be published.
There you have it! Bricolage will help you accomplish your goals because it gives you freedom to dream, motivates you to seek out resources and helps you network with purpose.