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Obstacles to Creativity: Get Out of Your Own Way

March 6, 2014 By Dave Leave a Comment

Hang Gliding by Steve Slater

Hang Gliding by Steve Slater

If you go hang gliding and you spend most of your energy and your focus watching your hands to make sure you’re steering the right way, well, is it really any wonder you keep crashing into the cliff face?

You need to throw yourself into the wide open and be aware of your hands, but everything else is you responding to the air around you, to the moment.

A Few Obstacles to Creativity That Start in Your Head

Perfection (or Finding the Right Answer/Writing the Right Thing) – having a desire to do your best is a good thing. Seeking perfection, on the other hand, tends to be a pursuit that gets in the way of creativity.

There are two big problems with a quest for perfection.

For one thing, it presumes that the final outcome is already set.

Planning is important, but most creative work tends to be organic. A plan is often a springboard to other ideas. A plan can also help keep you on track/task (structure is certainly important; shackles, not so much).

The magic, though, is found in the way the unconscious self takes over. Seeking perfection tends to keep that from happening.

Why?

Well, that’s the other problem with perfection – as we create, we have our internal critic turned on. We pass judgment on the work we’re doing, WHILE we’re doing it.

We end up like the poor dog on the leash that sees the bird perhced right there on the backyard fence but the dog can’t get to it. The dog keeps running and running in circles around the post where the leash is tethered. Without intending to, we plant one foot into the soil and then we try to run, but the judging part of us is constantly evaluating, keeping us from getting into any flow.

Think of a dancer with one foot nailed to the floor. The amount of fluidity and movement is quite limited. It’s so much harder to get into a flow.

Creativity Requires Flow!

Another problem with judging while creating is that the focus shifts from whatever it is we’re intending to work on to US. I’m evaluating how I am failing to do it right (or I’m worried that I won’t be able to get it right). When the focus is on the self, it can’t be on whatever it is we’re trying to create.

“Don’t think. Thinking is the enemy of creativity. It’s self-conscious, and anything
self-conscious is lousy. You can’t try to do things. You simply must do things
.” – Ray Bradbury

A friend recently told me: “Some days I can’t believe I work so hard at a project that may be entirely unsuccessful, by traditional measures.” This is a very common feeling among creatives (the traditionally accomplished ones and the newbies). For example, each time Alice Hoffman starts a new novel, she thinks, “I don’t know how to write a novel. I don’t know how to make it come alive. I don’t know how to tell a story. I don’t know what I’m doing”

My question to this concern is simple – what are you creating for? What is the deep-down intention behind that specific work? The whole concept of “success” again focuses on the outcome . . . before there actually is an outcome. The focus is so fixed on the destination that we often struggle to really get started. But if we remind ourselves, my intention is to explore this relationship and then we allow ourselves to explore, we tend to make discoveries we never even knew were possible.

I mean, Columbus, for all his faults, had no real idea what he would “discover” until after he set sail.

Critical Thinking (or being in your head too much) also gets in the way.

Art is a combination of the artist’s interpretation of something (an object, person, place, event, circumstance, emotion, etc). It is perception and point of view combined with creative expression. It’s the transformation of that perception into an idea that is communicated through the artist’s chosen language.

Critical thinking relies on logic and order and rules. It imposes constraints, and some constraints are useful for shaping a story or a painting, but not for the actual creating which requires “innovation” and response.

I love movies. And the best actors, the ones who have mastered their craft so well that you can’t separate them from the characters they’re portraying, they are the ones who use the framework of the dialogue and the scene to shape their actions, but they react to the other actors, to the environment, to the nuances of a particular moment.

The stiff, cardboard actors are the ones who just do everything as it is on the page. The “natural” or brilliant actors are the ones who embody the character and react intuitively.

When we spend time consciously thinking about what comes next, we’re the stiff actor. When we know this scene takes place here with these characters and then we just let go and see what happens, we tend to get into a flow. After we’re done, we can go back and judge it.

Ever misplace your keys and then spend time getting more and more frustrated the harder you try to remember where you put them . . . then, later, when you’re making dinner or driving to the store or taking a shower, you remember?!? Yep.

Sometimes doing some other activity can free up the creative mojo. One activity that often works is daydreaming (or “mindwandering”).

Being playful can also help. Take whatever it is you’re stuck on and imagine something nonsensical and try to create that. This can actually allow you to discover a sticking point without consciously setting out to do so.

Another way to get into flow is through movement.

Go for a walk. Do some yoga. Or thai chi. Or dance. But do so with intention! That’s the key. Use the movement of your body as a way into your writing or into your painting, as a creative tool you can rely on as part of the process. This is one way to help you get yourself into a flow.

Use your body as a way to get out of your head and into the creative process.

And remember, have fun! Creative expression should be fun. Most of the time, we don’t have fun by thinking hard this is fun this if fun. We just do whatever it is. Like Bradbury said, “Don’t think . . . You simply must do things.”


One of the reasons I like developing specific yoga sequences as a way INTO my writing is because of the way the brain works with the body. We tend to try to separate the two, when bringing them together is really a key.

“Albert Einstein said of the theory of relativity, ‘I thought of it while riding my bicycle.’ Anyone who exercises regularly knows that your thinking process changes when you are walking, jogging, biking, swimming, riding the elliptical trainer, etc. New ideas tend to bubble up and crystallize when you are inside the aerobic zone. You are able to connect the dots and problem solve with a cognitive flexibility that you don’t have when you are sitting at your desk. This is a universal phenomenon, but one that neuroscientists are just beginning to understand. ” To read more of this article on “The Neuroscience of Imagination” (and how moving your body can help with creativity) click here.


Photo Credit: Hang Gliding by Steve Slater photo above is used as per Creative Commons License on Flickr.

Filed Under: Creativity, Flow, Obstacles, Uncategorized, Writing Tagged With: body, creativity, Critical Thinking, Einstein, getting in yor own way, movement, obstacles, painting, Perfection, Ray Bradbury, writing, yoga

The Power of Rituals

February 27, 2014 By Terry Price 1 Comment

WritingI love coaching creatives and being part of their creative journeys.

And the best part of the coaching, so far, has been to see writers smiling and saying they are writing again, creating again. Because, I believe, that is our natural state. We are all creators. That is part of our collective myth. It is at the heart of our individual myths.

Your personal myth is your story, the story of who you really are, the center from which you live, love, and create.

One of the initial reasons people come to work with me is that they are simply not writing, not creating. And they are frustrated. They feel guilt. They are stressed. The clock is ticking and they have nothing to show for their time. Because they are not creating, they doubt their abilities, citing the lack of productivity as clear evidence they are not writers. Some even go so far as refusing to acknowledge they are really writers.

The first step in working with creatives is helping them learn their own story, their own myth. Remove the world’s expectations. Remove the parents’ hopes and dreams. Eliminate the well-intentioned third grade teachers admonitions and directions. Remove checkbooks and mortgages. Quiet the voice without and within. Who are you? Now…who are you, really? And there we begin on a journey to you.

Joseph Campbell says that a ritual is the enactment of a myth. I like that. It is a tangible way of participating in the myth. In the life of a creative, a ritual is a practice you establish to participate in who you are as a creative. In essence, a ritual becomes a entryway to your practice as a creative, regardless of how you express your creativity.

Think of the other areas of your life in which you participate in rituals. Our religious lives are filled with rituals we observe to connect us with the sacred. Think of your family, especially at the holidays, when we gather and do things a certain way, whether knowing where everyone will sit at the table, how we open our presents, stories always read or shared, movies always watched, whatever. These are all rituals that give expression to the myth we live, the myth of our life.

A ritual is sacred in the sense that it leads you to something greater within you. When created according to your own personal myth, a ritual leads you to…well…you. Because at your very essence, your very core, you, my dear friend, are a creative.

A lot of creatives just catch snatches of time here and there, plop down, and expect Faulkner to pour forth in about the same time your barista can whip up a double espresso and you consume it. When you make time for your art and approach it with your rituals, designed to help you participate in your own myth, your own life, the results are different. The critical, doubting voices all creatives hear begin to fade. The world is put back into its proper perspective. Expectations and demands are not allowed. Through our personal ritual, we prepare ourselves, full of wonder and anticipation, to just express. You deserve no less my friend.

Filed Under: Creative Writing, Creativity, Flow, myth, mythology, New Harmony, personal myth, personal story, ritual, Uncategorized Tagged With: art, creativity, expression, flow, follow your bliss, happiness, Joseph Campbell, our essence, painting, photography, who we are, writing, your passion, your true self

Move Toward Your True Self

February 20, 2014 By Dave 2 Comments

Flow by Alayna Palmer Hanneken

Flow by Alayna Palmer Hanneken

“I believe ardently that you should drop everything
and run toward your true self.” – Kyran Pittman

Chances are, most of us are not going to be able to “drop everything,” but that doesn’t mean we have to forget about being our true self as a result.

The important thing is to identify our true self and then to find ways to honor it – to run or walk or move toward it – as often and as fully as we can.

In his book, Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience, Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi (a pioneer in the scientific study of happiness), writes:

The best moments in our lives are not the passive, receptive, relaxing times . . . The best moments usually occur if a person’s body or mind is stretched to its limits in a voluntary effort to accomplish something difficult and worthwhile.”

Doing something that is both challenging and worthwhile!

Like devoting time to your passion. Like honoring that part of your true self. That doesn’t mean we have to be doing what we love 24/7 in order to be happy or to feel fulfilled (though if we can, that’s awesome). But we do need to devote some time to it.

Unfortunately, many creatives give up the pursuit of their art because it isn’t practical, because they won’t be able to (or may not be able to) support themselves on that alone.

I’m not going to suggest that most of us can just give up our day jobs and run in that direction, like Pittman suggests, but I do believe our cognizance of that limitation often influences just how much we do (and even more often do not) move in that direction.

There are certainly myriad reminders and pressures on us to forget about that direction (sometimes entirely), to stop following what Joseph Campbell called our “bliss” (whether that’s writing, or painting, or running, or whatever we feel called to do).

Most of us, however, give away time each week, if not each day, that we could spend doing that thing we love.

Maybe it’s only fifteen minutes some days, maybe it’s more. But the thing is, once we start making even a little time for that part of ourselves, we tend to find more time available for that very thing. And we also tend to start feeling happier and more fulfilled, as we get into what Csikszentmihalyi calls “Flow” doing that worthwhile activity.

Most of us can walk in the direction of our true selves if we allow ourselves to slow down and to listen, to identify what it is we truly want to do (our calling, so to speak), and if we give ourselves permission to honor that side of ourselves even just a little.

As Zig Ziglar put it, “You seldom, if ever, get lucky sitting down.”

We can’t get to that destination if we don’t actually get up and take the steps. And denying our true selves is often what leads to frustration, resentment, regret, guilt, and feelings of something missing and dissatisfaction.

So if you haven’t gotten started on the path toward your true self, begin by answering these questions:

Who is your true self?

What do you need to do to move in that direction?

If you have started, what do you need to do next in order to keep your momentum going? Giving yourself permission and time to do the thing you love is probably on the list.

Filed Under: Creativity, Flow, New Harmony, Retreat, Uncategorized, Writing Tagged With: creativity, flow, follow your bliss, happiness, Joseph Campbell, Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, writing, your passion, your true self

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"Listen With Heart" by Len Matthews

Listen With Your Heart

March 20, 2015 By Dave Leave a Comment

“The things which hurt, instruct.” - Benjamin Franklin As a boy, my one true love . . . was basketball. That’s right. Like Juliet to Romeo, basketball was the sun, only . . . okay, well, that may be stretching it a bit. But the idea of playing, the … [Read More...]

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