Imagine having an endless supply of great ideas at your fingertips.
Imagine reaching your greatest aspirations.
Imagine becoming all you want to be.
It takes courage to push ourselves to a place where we have never gone before, to test our limits and to break through the barriers that hold us back. Think about the lion in the 1939 classic film “The Wizard of OZ.” The lion, desperately seeking the courage to face life’s challenges, is constantly looking outside himself for courage. In all actuality, the lion had an unlimited reservoir of courage already there; only he was unable to see that truth about himself.
“Every man has his own courage, and is betrayed because he seeks in himself the courage of other persons.” Ralph Waldo Emerson
Just like the lion, we have everything we need inside of ourselves to become all we can be. As Mike Munn, my good friend and former head physicist for Lockheed says, “You know more than you know you know.” I would add, “and can be anything you want to be.” The challenge for us is to look inward for our strength to stretch and grow creatively instead of looking to the outside world for that strength. Too many times we are held back because we buy into negative outside influences that don’t encourage or support different thinking, creative ideas, inventions, or solutions.
In my life I have experienced many fears about being a writer. Growing up, I was challenged by traditional learning institutions. This challenge was compounded by my dyslexia. Writing for me has been torturous at best. As a CEO, my Board insisted that I take writing courses to improve my skills because they were concerned that my “unique” style would not be embraced by the corporate world.
For the past 15 years I have been visually representing concepts for a number of creativity books instead of putting my thoughts and ideas in writing. Communicating visually is easy for me while expressing myself in the written word is much more difficult and time consuming.
Several years ago I decided that there were important things that I had learned in my life that would be of value to others and I a strong desire to share these lessons was growing stronger. One of the means of communicating these learnings that made sense to me was to write them down, so the idea of putting my stories into a book made perfect sense.
Writing my first book was a major challenge to say the least. Coming up with the stories concepts was easy. What was hard was figuring out how to put these stories into words so I could meaningfully share the lessons I had learned. Would people really understand what I was writing about? My experience was that they understood what I communicated visually and now to translate these visual expressions into the written word. What I discovered in the process was expressing myself in words was just another way for me to embrace the unknown and find the courage to reach for my full potential.
“Courage is the power to let go of the familiar.” Raymond Lindquist
What area of your life is holding you back from reaching what you want to do or want to be? What is it that you are not doing that you would like to be doing? What do you want to create for yourself?
When we find the courage to go where we have never been before it does not mean that all of the sudden insecurity, fear and anxiety do not exist. Instead we consciously make the decision to move through these feelings as constructively and creatively as we possibly can.
By taking leaps of faith and stepping over the edge into the unknown we stretch our visible and hidden skills to new limits and promote exercising our creative potential.
So the next time you find yourself saying, “Oh I can’t do that!” or “That idea is way to over the top!” take time and remind yourself “Hey, I know more than I know I know and can do anything I decide to do.”
“It’s not who you are that holds you back, it’s who you think you’re not.” Author Unknown
Believe in yourself and in your abilities and you can accomplish great things.
Tools for Exercising Your Creativity Muscles
Sketch and Doodle Your Thinking
One of the single greatest ways I have found to generate new ideas and overcome challenges is to pick up a pencil or pen and start doodling my thoughts. This does not mean you have to possess exceptional drawing skills to draw out your ideas. Stick figures along with simple images have an amazing power to jog your brain consciously and subconsciously, supporting you to reach your goals. These doodles are for your eyes only if you choose. Let go of your judgment about artistic merit and instead think of your doodles as a tool to generate new and winning ideas. We have all heard about the idea that was drawn on a napkin and became the next big thing. What idea do you have to draw out of yourself?
Take A Risk
When you are not failing every now and again you are at risk of stagnating yourself and your creativity. When you take a chance you exercise your creativity muscles and continue to strengthen it. Stop doing new things and you lose the creative muscle of risk. Go ahead, take a risk and find something new to do and see where it takes you.
No More Excuses
We have all heard the saying “Just do it!” Sounds so simple doesn’t it? When I started writing the “What Box?” series of books I had to give up on all the excuses that were keeping me from reaching and fulfilling my aspirations. In many cases it takes even more creativity to remove the excuses that hold us back than it does to develop the idea in the first place. What excuses are you holding onto?
How can you remove these excuses and become the creative person you were meant to be?
Remember, anything is possible when you believe it is so.
Let me know what you think.
Until next week, remember the only boxes that exist are the ones you create yourself.
