My Big Bang Theory

I was sitting at my desk a few minutes ago writing, doors open, dogs sleeping quietly in the room when suddenly there was a large BANG, jolting me out of my seat, waking up the dogs and causing the adrenaline to pump for all of us.  There’s some construction happening just down the street and apparently a front loader dropped a big steel plate onto the ground. It’s taken us all a little bit to regulate ourselves and settled back into our routine, but it definitely shook us all awake for a few minutes.

I think we often expect creativity to be like that.  We’re standing around in our lives watching and waiting for the big bang of creative insight to happen. It doesn’t matter if it’s the perfect, chart-topping song, the ultimate invention that everyone will want or the ideal phrase for a closing argument that will sway the jury in the right direction – we often think if we just wait long enough…BANG! It will come to us in a brilliant flash of insight.

Occasionally, it does happen that way. And just like my experience this morning, bangs of creativity can leave the creator disoriented and hopped up on the adrenal rush for awhile – which is not a way to create consistent, creative flow.

Creativity is usually much more like a whisper.  Maybe you’re at a loss on a plot point for your novel.  Until you figure it out, you’re really kind of stuck.  So you tinker with it- you show up at the page consistently and try a few things – nothing really works.  Finally, maybe in the shower or on a walk or sitting on the back porch watching the birds at the feeder, something in your brain catches your attention.  You can’t really make it out at first, but the more you quiet yourself and listen, the easier it is to piece together the whispered thoughts and suddenly, that’s it! You can see how everything fits together clearly. In those moments, you suddenly gain momentum and can keep moving forward- there is nothing unsettling to recover from.  Your creativity is flowing forward and you are being pulled along for the ride.

It’s hard to wait for the whisper because the bang is so flashy and bold. “Here I am! Pay attention to me!” it announces. The whisper of creativity sits quietly in the corner waiting for you to notice it. But it’s always the stronger ally in the end.

When I was a child, I learned a Bible story about the prophet Elijah.  He was told to go up a mountain into a cave and wait for God to speak to him.  First came a great wind, but Elijah did not hear the voice of God in the wind.  Next came a powerful earthquake, but again, no voice.  Then Elijah watched as a large fire burned everything around his cave – but still nothing.  Finally, the world around him got very quiet. Only then was Elijah able to hear God’s voice whispering his name. Creativity works exactly like this.  It seems like we should be able to find it in the flash, the larger-than-life, the Big Bang! But it’s not there at all.

Creativity is whispering your name. Quiet yourself to see what it’s got in store for you.

Simple and Easy

It’s spring around here which means I’m spending a lot of my brain power (too much of my brain power) thinking about my gardens. I got excited last week about a shipment of asparagus plants arriving the same way someone sane might get excited about a shipment of hundred dollar bills arriving on their doorstop. Every year people look at me wistfully and say, “I wish I could grow a garden,” to which I always reply, “You can!  It’s really easy!” This dazzling display of persuasiveness never seems to win anyone over. Most of the time, people just shake their heads and change the subject.

And then one day, it occurred to me.  Growing a garden is simple – put seeds or plants in the ground, give them water and sunlight and pick when the veggies are ripe. You don’t need a Ph.D. to grow tomatoes. However, growing a garden isn’t easy. You need to prep the soil, plan out the beds, plant at the right time for the particular seeds or seedlings, water a lot, weed, watch out for things that eat or infect your garden and visit it every day so you can get a sense about what your garden looks like healthy and quickly deal with any problems that arise. No wonder some of my friends get scared off when I mention they should create a garden for themselves.

It’s a confusion between simple and easy.

For example:

Losing weight – simple.  Eat better, exercise more. However it is not easy to choose the apple over the brownie, the salad over the french fries and boy, I’d love to run 5 miles every day, in theory…

Writing a novel – simple. Sit at the computer and string words together until you finish saying everything you want to say. But it is not easy to find the discipline to sit in that chair, day in and day out, not knowing if what you are writing is any good or if anyone will want to read it.

Following your passion – simple. Do what you love. What’s not easy is doing what you love consistently, day in and day out regardless of the initial results your seeing. Also, it’s not easy to do all the other pieces that support following your passion when those things are tedious, hard or necessary. And let’s not forget you have to make money while getting your passion off the ground and then still have energy to do something about it at the end of the day.

I think we sometimes confuse simple with easy and then we’re shocked when it’s so hard to make something happen. Or at the very least, we expect simple and easy to go hand in hand. Then, the moment we meet with some resistance- whether that’s five minutes into doing something or five months, we reel from the appearance of barriers.

Simple but NOT easy should be our mindset.  No doubt you’ve heard the phrase, “If it was easy,everyone would be doing it.”  And it’s true even if it’s a bit trite. And truthfully, I’ll take simple over easy any day. Simple means I don’t have to waste too much energy knowing what my goal or the next steps are. That frees up my energy to tackle the hard. If something is hard, I have to work at it, and if a little work is all it takes, well I can do that with the right mindset.

Confusing simple with easy can stop you before you ever get started.  I’ve heard people say countless times, “I don’t understand why I can’t…(lose weight, make croissants, get my MBA), it’s so simple.” They are stuck on the fact that because they know the steps, it should just happen. Don’t focus on the wrong things- the real work is figuring out why you don’t make the right food choices or what’s stopping you from baking on the weekends or even why you chose to hit the bar in the evenings instead of the books. If you’re waiting for it to become easy, it will never happen. Simple and easy never go hand in hand (at least initially) for anything worthwhile in my experience. Though the work may eventually change and morph into something more enjoyable, it rarely gets any easier, your mindset around it just changes.

So consider those things you really want to accomplish in your life but never seem to make happen. Have you set up false expectations for yourself by confusing simple and easy? Try changing your expectations around it and see what happens.  It’s ok for it to be simple AND hard.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I have some asparagus beds to build.

Kick It Like A Rock Star

I’ll admit it.  After I dropped the girls off at school today I was rocking out to Jon Bon Jovi. Nothing like a little 80′s hair band music to get me motivated for the day. The song was “Dead or Alive” and as I was singing along, one particular line struck me:

“I’ve seen a million faces, and I’ve ROCKED them all.”

My first reaction was, “Well, Jon certainly thinks highly of himself, doesn’t he?” But as I thought about it, I realized he probably has done exactly that.  It might have started out as hyperbole but over the last twenty-something years I’m sure he has played for millions of fans. I’ve personally seen him live and he puts on one hell of a show.  When you listen to him sing that line, he sings it with conviction – he knows who he is and he’s not afraid to announce it to the world.

“Dead or Alive” came out at the apex of Jon’s career.  And yet, I know that was a sentiment he experienced well before he was playing to sold-out stadiums all across America. I’d even bet money that he spent time as a teenager in NJ imagining himself on stage in huge stadiums – hearing the crowd go crazy, squinting at the bright lights, pointing out to the audience and yelling, “Good night New York!”  He had the fundamental belief that he was going to rock the world with his music.

Imagine if you spent more time acting like a rock star. I’m not talking about buying a tour bus and partying all night with different people, and you certainly won’t get me into skin tight leather pants. I’m talking about the rock star mindset. It’s the “fake it ’til you make it” mentality, but (to steal from Spinal Tap), this one goes to eleven. It’s people camping out overnight to get tickets to see you, wearing your t-shirt, crying at the very sight of you kind of imagery. I don’t care if you’re writing the next top 40 hit or drafting a  business plan for your new accounting business. Because what often gets in our way of doing something is the fear that we can’t do it. So we spend all our time worrying and fussing and going over the “what-if scenarios” in our head over and over again.  We plan and research and plan some more and then we research again in case something new has come out. The result is we spend all of our time in the preparation phase and never execute the plan that could lead us to a new life, financial freedom, or could literally change the world. All because we doubt ourselves.

But not Jon Bon Jovi.  He knows he’s going to rock the stage – whether there are 5 people watching him or 50,000 people. There is no doubt about that from the moment he walks out onto a stage. And boy doesn’t he have fun doing it. Does he make mistakes? Sure. Did every song he wrote go platinum?  Not even close.  Is he still having an impact today and trying new things? You bet.  In fact, you should check out his newest adventure, The Jon Bon Jovi Soul Kitchen which has nothing to do with music and everything to do with changing lives.

This week I’m challenging you to channel your inner rock star. Walk with a swagger, feel invincible and know you have sold out the stadium.  Rock stars aren’t perfect, but the one thing they don’t lack is self-confidence. Trust in the awesomeness that is YOU.  Believe your own hype.  You are that great, you do rock the world and people are climbing over each other just to buy what you are selling. Spend a few minutes each day visualizing yourself as a rock star to the world and see where it takes you.

See you on your world tour.

How Do I Choose?

One of the great things about being a coach is that it enables me to indulge in my penchant for reading personal development, motivational, organizational and social science books with wild abandon.  It also gives me the opportunity to write them all off on my taxes, but that’s an entirely different post.  There are a lot of choices out there in every type of category you can think of. Let’s look at Amazon.com for a start. Interested in developing your creativity this year? You’re in luck! Amazon delivers 11,546 choices.  Want to be more motivated?  A quick search comes up with an impressive 25,798 tomes to choose from.  If you want to take  more risks this year, there are a staggering 75,150 offerings all ready to be delivered to your door with a click of a button.

If you spend anytime reading books or blogs, attending seminars, watching videos about any sort of process whether it be creativity, management or even cleaning out your closets, what you’re going to find is a lot of contradictory information. First you develop a system, no wait, first you dive in to see what you’re working with. The number one secret is understanding your employees and giving them the structure they need, unless you ask them what they need and allow them to create it for themselves. Start slowly with baby steps except you should start by taking massive action as a way to commit yourself entirely to the process.

You get the idea.

There are literally more than a million books out there that will give you advice on how to do just about anything. And each of them will expound on a different way to help you accomplish your goal. But how do you choose which way to go?  Protein or Raw diet? Cry it out or attachment parenting? Structure or free form? Don’t forget about asking your friends their opinion too- they ALL have something to say about with path you choose.

Truthfully, though, all of these choices boil down to one thing:  Does it work for you?

Sometimes, we can only tell if something works for us by trying it and evaluating the outcome. Will Julie Cameron’s concept of “morning pages” change the way I creatively orient myself on a daily basis? The only way to figure it out is get up every morning for several weeks and try it. Sometimes we can inherently realize an outcome of a particular system because we understand ourselves. There are people who have had life-altering experiences after being dropped in the desert for a week with only a tent and their wits in a modern-day vision quest. But I  know without doing it myself that killing a rattlesnake with my bare hands and eating it raw is not going to help me see my life clearly.

You know yourself best.  You understand what works and what doesn’t – maybe innately or maybe sometimes you have to try the process and see, but you always know best. Remember when authors or speakers or trainers tell you “this is the only system you’ll ever need,” what they are saying is, “Here’s what works for me.” If it works for you too, great. If not, it doesn’t mean you are a failure or you can’t follow through or there is something wrong with you. It just means you haven’t found your way yet. You will.  Don’t trust me just because I say so though, trust yourself.

Quieting the Troops

Fun fact for the day:  A group of monkeys is called a troop.

If you’ve studied meditation at all, I am sure you’ve heard the term “monkey mind” which refers to the near constant state of the mind to jump from one idea to the next, to the next, to the next in a restless, insatiable sort of way.  One goal during meditation is to gain control of the monkey mind. Personally, I would LOVE it if there was only one monkey jumping around in my mind. For me it’s more of a troop of hundreds of monkeys – a really loud, agitated, screaming troop – all of whom want me to focus my singular attention on them.

We’ve all had those times in our lives when the noise in our head is so loud, so all-encompassing, so disorienting that we literally can’t do anything but shut down. Because my brain seems to be always set at eleven this happens to me at least 3-4 times a day. (You should see what happens when I’m actually stressed.) There are moments when the sound inside my own head is so loud, I am almost blinded from too much internal stimuli. I literally can’t figure out what I am supposed to do or where I am supposed to be and I can’t make even the simplest of decisions.

Thankfully, I have figured out a way to silence the monkeys.  I visualize it as handing each monkey a banana or draping a blanket over their heads which immediately causes them to sit quietly.  It takes a while to get to all of the monkeys- they sit on lots of tree branches and sometimes jump away just as I inch my way out to them, but eventually I quiet them all down. Only then can I begin to work with clarity, purpose and calm.

So, in no particular order, here are the many things I’ve discovered to calm the troops:

• Write down everything that’s bouncing around in my head
• Work on a jigsaw puzzle
• Play my guitar
• Take a walk with my earphones on and the music up loud
• Watch the birds on my feeders
• Stroll through IKEA without buying anything
• Browse through a bookstore
• Sit on my back steps and study my field for animals, birds, etc.
• Take a long drive with my music playing
• Sing at the top of my lungs
• Stand on the deck in the dark, breathing deeply with my arms outstretched while looking at the stars
• Tackle an organizational project
• De-clutter something
• Color
• Work on a crossword puzzle or sudoku
• Pat my dogs
• Follow a yoga video
• Run
• Ice Skate
• Sit by the water (bonus points if I can get out on a boat)
• Make something crafty
• Sweep
• Fold laundry
• Wander through an antique shop

How about you? Add to the list in the comments below.

 

 

Regina Verow is a life coach and workshop presenter who believes we can change the world one tiny creative step at a time.  For questions about coaching or to receive a free, no obligation coaching session, email her at Regina@ReginaVerow.com.

You Can’t Wait to Want

I bought myself this t-shirt.  It makes me happy and feel a little deliciously subversive since the only time I wear it is when I hit the pavement. For those of you who are new around here, I started running for the first time since the 7th grade this past September.  I am a newbie, and not the evangelical-converted-you-have-to-try-running-it-will-change-your-life kind.  I’m more along the lines of an I’m-fairly-certain-this-next-workout-will-kill-me-I’m-so-out-of-shape newbie.

And yet, three mornings a week I put on my t-shirt and head down the road as soon as the girls get on the bus. It’s a thirty minute run, nothing earth-shattering, but I always feel better for having run. I experience a sense of accomplishment that stays with me for the rest of the day when I get home.

Here’s the thing though. I never want to run.  I want to have run. I want to feel better about my body, get into better shape, have more energy and lose a few pounds.  But I never want to run. And if I wait around for the motivation to do it, it will never, ever happen.

We sometimes think that if something is important enough to us we’ll want to do it. And that doesn’t always or often happen.  How many people have half-finished novels sitting on their hard drive, waiting for the motivation to figure out the place where the plot derailed? How many people buy gym memberships and never step foot into the place again?  How many people do you know talk about getting around to  __________ (losing the baby weight, getting a new job, figuring out what they want to do with their life, etc. etc.) someday?  The insinuation is that they are waiting for a compelling enough reason to stop their life and focus on whatever that something is. And occasionally people do get that kind of motivation –  a cancer diagnosis, an unexpected break up, a near-death experience or some other huge loss in their life. Hopefully, you are lucky enough not to have a tragic or scary life-changing event propel you into change.

And then, there are a few that decide if they wait around until they want something bad enough to go after  it, it will probably never happen. So they dive in. And they make the choice to dive in again and again and again. Despite the failings, despite the tedium of the steps towards their goal, despite the fact that they never quite want to take the steps.

It’s ok to acknowledge you don’t want to do something. But if it serves your bigger goal, you have to acknowledge that you don’t want to do it while you do it anyway. If you wait to want, you’ll never get any closer.

I will never want to run day after day. I wear my “Running Sucks” shirt to express those feelings…and then I run anyway. What can you do to propel yourself in to action for something you’ve been putting off until the day you “want to do it?”

 

 

 

Regina Verow is a life coach and workshop presenter who believes we can change the world one tiny creative step at a time.  For questions about coaching or to receive a free, no obligation coaching session, email her at Regina@ReginaVerow.com.

2012 Word of the Year

We watched Tangled quite a bit over the holiday break in our household.  It’s a fun movie and I particularly like that Rapunzel does just as much rescuing in the movie as Flynn. (Spoiler Alert: If you haven’t seen the movie and want to remained surprised, skip down to the next paragraph.) When I took my girls to see it for the first time in the theater, I couldn’t figure out who voiced Rapunzel. She sounded familiar but I couldn’t quite make the connection until that pivotal moment when Flynn slashes her hair off with the piece of broken mirror. Instantly, Rapunzel’s hair looses it’s golden color and becomes dark brown.  This dramatic change from long golden locks to a short brown bob made it suddenly obvious to me who the actress was, it finally looked just like her –Mandy Moore! Her transformation allowed me, for the first time, to see who she really was.

Without overdoing the metaphor – I sometimes feel a little like Rapunzel- waiting for my “real” life to get started. I’m cautious and I often research something to death before deciding to take a leap. I engage in a lot of preparation for even the most mundane of tasks and one of the repeating loops in my head can be heard saying “Someday, someday, someday…”

I’ve mentioned before, I am not a big fan of New Year’s Resolutions in my own life. They are often one more thing to add in an already busy time and they are always the first things to drop by the wayside when cuts have to be made. What I find more effective is a technique Christine Kane uses; choosing a word to focus on for the year. This year I am pledging to start squeezing out the endless voice of “someday” and instead consider that things are possible right now. I want my life this year to be more of an action verb instead of  defaulting to the passive voice.  I’m going to do less prep work and more actual living. I’m going to come out of the tower and spend more time with my feet on the ground.  I will be the hero in my own story.  All of this will lead me to my word of the year:

TRANSFORMATION

What’s yours going to be?

 

 

Are you ready to kick start the new year and make it your best year ever?  During the month of January I am offering a one-hour single phone session to help you get crystal clear on your goals for the upcoming year and develop a realistic and inspiring plan to achieve those goals. This one-hour single session is discounted to a rate of $100.  Call or email me today!