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Home : Be Creative! : Jill Badonsky : Previously on Marge...
Creative Solutions and Inspirations from the Modern Day MusesPreviously on Marge... (Marge Reloaded)
By Jill Badonsky, M.Ed. Marge is the modern day Muse of Okay-Now-Let’s-Get-Started. In last month’s column, Marge Part One, you were encouraged to make a start with a creative call you have or continue an “in progress” endeavor in real time. How did you do? If you avoided, procrastinated, denied, cleaned your keyboards, checked your email or kept reading on the Internet (which counts as avoidance), or just have trouble beginning or staying with a project here are some tips to consider. Starting a creative endeavor can be the hardest part, which you probably know but much of the staying-in-the-creative-flow-game is about reminders. The mind loves questions and the creative process is propelled forward by asking ourselves small questions but not expecting immediate answers. Our subconscious plays, incubates, percolates, associates and connects these questions. And thinking about questions is fairly easy but you must be diligent about it because you pretty much look the same whatever it is you are thinking, so I’m just going to have to trust that you’ll ask yourself small questions because it IS easy, and most of us mortals like “easy.” Wow, having that sentence make sense wasn’t that easy. ANYWAY. Asking yourself questions is a valid first step in the creative process because the mind creates and percolates answers including questions like:
"Success is how you collect your minutes. You spend millions of minutes to reach one triumph, one moment, then you spend maybe a thousand minutes enjoying it…. If you were unhappy through those millions of minutes, what good are those few minutes of triumph?" — Norman Lear The brain doesn’t operate too efficiently with fear. The amygdala (the flight or fight center) supersedes the cortex (the center for creativity). Creativity brings up fear... I probably do not need to remind you but here’s just a few of the fears entering the creative process brings up: fear of wasting time and money, of not being good enough, of success, of giving up a comfortable rut, of alienating others, of failure, and of going berserk. That is just to name a few. These fears alert the amygdala to turn off the cortex so we are left blank and watching TV feels easier. Creativity is a spiritual process comprised of overcoming demons in the name of tapping into our divine source of originality. Demons are uncomfortable... procrastination is more comfortable from a lower self point of view, but, alas for most of you reading this column, not from a higher self one. SOOOO, to avoid the brain dysfunction and self loathing, Marge’s biggest advice is to break the beginning of a process down so far that fear is not triggered and to repeat this step over and over with patience and persistence and imperfection permission until your process becomes a desirable, pleasurable habit and resistance becomes an oil and vinegar phenomenon not a creative one. All of this small step theory is explained with clarity and brilliance in my partner in Kaizen-Muse Creativity Coaching Training, Dr. Bob Maurer’s One Small Step Can Change Your Life: The Kaizen Way. The whole book is ever so Marge but spelled out from the brains point of view. It changed my life… and I suspect that if you have problems getting started or finishing projects, it will change yours too. By small step we are talking one to five minutes at a time, one small step, one small question:
Attend Jill Badonsky’s free monthly teleconferences on Kaizen-Muse Creativity Coaching. Next one is September 4, 2007. Sign up at www.kaizenmuse.com … play with the floating icons at www.themuseisin.com. Copyright © Jill Badonsky, 2007. All rights reserved.
08/13/07 |
