Showing up when it sucks. How to deal with it when you’ve run out of ideas. On embracing the creative darkness. Learning to see again.
Do you show up when it sucks? When you ain’ feeling it? When you can barely see the screen? Then, what? Do you quit and go and do something else? Or, do you dig in and stick with it, embracing the suck, embracing the darkness of not knowing? Do you still make? Do you still create for your audience? Do you still show up for them even if no one’s paying attention?
We can all have bad days, yet still plow through to the other side of them. We can embrace the darkness because we know there is light on the other end of it. We can sit with the confusion because if we keep working through it, we’ll come out clear on the other side. We’re already ready. We just have to leverage the Chutzpah, the Creative Courage to see our way through it all.
Trust in oneself comes through experience and success. We know we’ve pushed through similar difficulties before and we know we can do the same things again. This time, we’ll emerge even stronger than before because we are smarter, wiser, and tougher than we used to be. Not to mention a more creative problem solver. One of the greatest gifts can we gift someone is showing them a new way to see. Imagine being a creative perspective shifter. They are out there, helping people to see things differently, relying on super powers that few of us willingly embrace and use. What a strong leadership power this is, especially with so few willing to embrace it. Yet here we are, embracing it.
Not everyone will, though, because most people don’t like change. Most people, even people in their own ruts, like things just the way they are, thank you. They do not seek out change for its own sake. They do not seek to make things better, not even for their own families. No. They’re good with the way they see things. Id’ call this stuck in the status quo. It’s no wonder most people feel stuck — because they are! Stuck in thoughts. Stuck in old ways of doing things. Stuck in limited beliefs about themselves and others, even those closest to them.
When learning to see differently, you see that change is all around us. To deny change is to deny life. It’s silly that we fall prey to not wanting change when it is actually a part of our physiology and our biology. We’re already in it and yet we deny it. Most of us are too close-minded to even see this. We stay stuck living limited lives. There we go again: getting in our own way.
The way we get out of it is to open up and ask questions. Prompt ourselves about who we want to become. How will we treat people? Where do we see ourselves going? How will we choose to make things better for everyone? What culture will we cultivate and create? What do we want to have accomplished in three years? In ten years? What will we be most proud of? How will we transform people into better versions of themselves? For ourselves and for others: we need to speak up and say what we see. Over and over again. With confidence. With courage. With creativity. We go.
Note that confidence, courage and creativity are not one and done. No. They are practices. They are actions. They are things you do on a regular basis. Nothing external is necessary to engage these positive qualities. And they are open to us all. We’re ready for them right now if we openly embrace them and regularly engage them. But first, we have to believe we’re capable of them, of living them, of practicing them. We lose our way, we lose our confidence and our courage when negative events outside of us happen. It feels natural. It feels normal. But you don’t have to allow outside events to shake your confidence. You don’t have to lose your self confidence just because something outside of you and your control didn’t work out. You have tons to offer people if you think you do. Just because something ‘bad’ happened or something you didn’t expect happened, doesn’t mean you lose all confidence forever. No!
Creativity, confidence and Courage are all /practices/. You generate confidence in what you do, which becomes who you are. We generate the positive feelings and emotions we seek to be, not waiting for them to one day show up in our lives. They’re already within us. We simply have to do those activities that generate them for us regularly. Then, they show up in our lives. They become us. It all starts with intention on how we seek to become.
