Redesign Your Priorities and Make Room for Your Creativity
Posted 11/28/06 | Updated 7/2/20
What sacrifices can you make in exchange for a more fulfilling creative life?
Whenever you add something new to your life, you often need to make some sacrifices. To provide room for your creative genius, some changes may need to occur. The following will get you thinking about what you might jettison.
When you finish reading the list of things you could forgo, take a personal inventory and add a few of your own sacrifices. It's well worth the effort to let go of old patterns and habits in order to have more juicy creativity in your life!
Endless surfing the Internet
Sure there's a lot of great information and you can learn and connect with others. Beware of time slipping away as you troll from site to site.
TV
If you watch more than 5 hours of TV a week, you could be draining your time and creative energy. How much sketching could you do in 5 hours? Unplug yourself from others' creativity and do something of your own.
Rambling conversations on the phone
Connecting with loved ones is great. When the conversation oozes into gossip or rambling, you could be wasting your vital life energy. Create boundaries around your time and make room for yourself.
Complaining about not creating
Talking about what you wish you were doing is a waste of time. How many years have you spent bemoaning your lack of output. The energy it takes to procrastinate and kvetch is put to better use actually creating.
Shopping out of boredom
Buying things is the American way to fill the void. When we're bored, restless, lonely, or angry we often empty our wallets to fill ourselves up. Why not fill up a notebook with your stories instead?
Your self-image as a non-achiever in the creativity department
Embarking on a creative project and actually completing it will change your image of yourself. Make room for a fulfilled, accomplished you.
Saying yes to all requests from friends, family, strangers, etc.
When you're trying to fit something new into your life, you will need to say no to things that you don't really want to do.
Interactions with 'draining' people
When you're trying to go for something scary, the last thing you need is someone asking, "How are you going to do that?" in a tone of voice that is clearly not supportive. Instead, know who your allies are and call them when in need of a boost.
Control
The creative process engages you in one of the world's greatest mysteries. You may not know what you are doing at any point in the process, and that's half the fun of it. Be an idiot for once.
Giving fears priority
As we stretch and express our ideas, fears will loom. However, giving them more credence than our creativity will keep us in the 'wishing' phase of creativity.
©2006 Cynthia Morris. All rights reserved.
Original Impulse Coaching's Cynthia Morris has been coaching writers, artists and entrepreneurs since 1999. more
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