News!
The new August-September 2008 videos will be up by the end of the week. The new UPositive Creativity and Life Coaching Goal Attainment Tip is about making decisions, and the Creativity Challenge focuses on synesthesia (“joined perception”). Take a look/listen at www.YouTube.com/UPositive. Thank you Lance!
The first items from Batya Sez… UPositive’s product line of motivational, inspirational, slightly cynical, and just plain fun sayings on caps and T-shirts, mousepads and mugs, magnets and more should also be available by the end of this week. You can find them through the Shop link at www.UPositive.com or through www.CafePress.com/UPositive (I haven’t tested this link yet…if it changes I’ll post the new one here next Monday). The second batch of items should be available in another week or so.
The Website, www.UPositive.com, is semi-functional!!!! There are some important changes that will be posted in a few days; the eBook is ready but not yet connected to the site, and the Links page is not up-to-date but will be soon. Feel free to wander around the site and let me know what you think!
Look for a big grand opening party in mid-September! Details will be available by the end of this month!
Fear of Failure/Fear of Success
In the past two weeks, the topic of fear in relation to creative activity and/or goal attainment has come up a number of times. I’m not going to address the difference between the fear of failure vs the fear of success here, because the results are the same: we become stuck, inactive, unable to accomplish our desires, and often depressed.
Fear is an interesting emotion. Most of our emotions reside in the right brain. Fear, on the other hand, seems to originate in the left brain, jump the dividing line of the corpus callosum, and take up residence in the right brain. There, it masquerades as an intense emotion rather than the belief(s) that it is.
“I might fail,” is a thought, not an emotion, and the resulting beliefs, such as “I’m not good enough,” or “Then I am worthless,” or “Then no one will love me,” or many other possible thoughts jump up with it. Sometimes they’re just under the surface of awareness, but with a bit of scratching through, we’ll find them.
When we allow fear of failure/success to run our lives, to make choices regarding actions on the to-do list of attaining our goals, we often fall into a depression, which further shackles our forward motion. Often, breaking through depression requires taking action no matter what: whether we feel like we want to or not. (Biochemical depression might need a biochemical response as well as taking action). Even very small activities can engender increased energy.
I think the most powerful tool to fight the fear of failure/success is courage. Courage is often a doing-it-anyway attitude. I’m going to try whether I fail or succeed. I’m sure you’ve heard the saying, “the only true failure is in not trying” or some such wording. Courage is something we all have because it can be made up. Courage can come from “living as if” as often as it comes from some personality strength. It can be derived from stubbornness (“I won’t let that stop me!”) and from rebelliousness (“So, left brain, you think you have the last word? I don’t think so!”). In breaking through fear of failure/success, it doesn’t really matter where your courage comes from. Gather it together and use it.
Take a look through the Shop page at UPositive.com (well, in a week or two). If you need a reminder, the “Do it Anyway” products, with their inner-goblin faces, will remind you that you’re not alone in this battle against your fears.
The other recommendation I have for addressing and conquering the fear of failure/success is to let go of your desire for perfection. We’re human: perfection belongs to God/gods/the Universe (whatever your belief, please translate to your own understanding). Accept that you’re going to fail at being perfect.
The Dine People (Navajo) added a dream thread to their weavings, which wandered through the rugs at a meandering diagonal while all the other threads were at right-angles. The Japanese build a flaw into their pottery. Both do these for the same reason: what they create should not be perfect, cannot be perfect, isn’t meant to be perfect. They’re human. Even their most successful creations are imperfect. And they see a beauty in that.
The August-September UPositive Goal Attainment video about decision-making addresses the fear of making choices, and offers a process to break through and make the best-possible choice of the moment. Take a look: it might be helpful to you.
There’s a lot more conversation possible about fear of failure/success. I’d like to hear your thoughts, suggestions, and experiences about it. Please post your comments and stories here.
Note: Primal fear---of such things as loud noises, falling, possibly the dark, large animals with sharp teeth growling at us, and, in Romania especially, Dracula, arises from our Reptilian brain, but is not the topic of this conversation.
---Batya
Showing posts with label UPositive. Show all posts
Showing posts with label UPositive. Show all posts
Tuesday, July 15, 2008
Tuesday, June 10, 2008
Creativity & "Madness" 2nd look
News and not-so-new news
The Nashville Goal-Attainment Meetup continues on Tuesdays at 6 pm. Please sign up for this empowering group at http://self-improvement.meetup.com/279/. This is the Getting It Done! chance for success! Ifyou really want to create the life you dream of, this is the place that can help you get it done! Creative and everyday goals are welcome. It's an open group: come when you can!
Time Management for Creative People will be presented at the Songwriter’s Guild of America on June 18th and 26th (both are Thursday evenings). That's next week, people! Please go to www.songwritersguild.com to sign up. First step in Time Management: put it on your calendars now! We’ll be talking about organizing, scheduling, and a lot more than that! As usual in my workshops, I’ll be addressing the special issues creative folks face in accomplishing left-brain activities such as managing time. We’ll be doing some fun right-brain activities, too. Managing time leads to increased success in your creative endeavors! So, what are you waiting for? Seating is (really and truly) limited, so reserve now. Kimberly’s waiting to hear from you!
Website News The to-do list to get www.UPositive.com up and running is showing some actual check-it's-done marks! The two May videos remain up on YouTube. Check them out and enter the creativity challenge! They'll be there throughout June, too; I'll aim to start new ones on a monthly basis in July. Does anyone know how to create a virtual party for the day when www.UPositive.com is up and running?
My first eBook, Goal Attainment for Creative People, will available from the Webite as soon as it's active. I’m also busy creating some fun products---coffee mugs, T-shirts, caps, magnets, etc.---related to creativity, goal attainment, and just plain silliness. Does anyone out there know how to maneuver in CafePress.com?
CREATIVITY & MADNESS (2nd look)
There’s actually an annual week-long seminar out in Santa Fe that I’m planning to attend one of these years, by that title. Intriguing workshops, though most are based on examining the work of a particular well-known artist (broadest definition of the term), usually past, in the light of their mental health issues or personality quirks. It leaves much to be desired, as far as I can tell, but the title of the retreat draws me to it, hopefully not in the moth-to-flame kind of way.
What interests me much more are inquiries into the chicken-or-egg type of controversy over “madness” and creativity. Most of the studies I’ve read approach the topic with how the symptoms of a mental health diagnosis---such as depression, anxiety, or bipolar disorder---affect the creative process, either feeding it or detracting from it.
Many salient points are explored in those approaches: how the listlessness and lack of energy of depression keep writers from their work; how being unable to focus leaves many artistic works unfinished, frustrating the artist; how anxiety about failure or success leaves many works unmarketed, or even uncreated.
I like this approach, as it provides quite a bit of insight into problems my friends, colleagues, and clients face.
But it leaves something out. Something I’ve experienced myself, and something---once I broach the topic---many creative people relate to.
Avoiding creative action can exacerbate the symptoms of depression, anxiety, bipolar disorder, ADD, OCD, or any number of other “madnesses.” When I have stories or songs brewing inside me and don’t make the time to release them onto paper or laptop, a particular kind of frustration sets in. If I continue to avoid creating, the frustration turns to anger, or anxiety, or a cloudlike depression that begins to affect my mood and other activities. It slows me down, though I tend to try to speed up in everything I do.
Truth is, if I don't make time for the creative outflow, no matter how fast I think I'm doing everything else, I tend to wander in circles. It takes more hours to accomplish fewer tasks. My attention, my life-force, my internal Power is off-kilter, mucking up the clarity with which I otherwise work.
What are your experiences: does your anxiety/depression/etc. work for or against your creativity? Does your avoidance of creativity increase or decrease your mental-health symptoms? I'd love to read your thoughts on the topic!
--Batya
The Nashville Goal-Attainment Meetup continues on Tuesdays at 6 pm. Please sign up for this empowering group at http://self-improvement.meetup.com/279/. This is the Getting It Done! chance for success! Ifyou really want to create the life you dream of, this is the place that can help you get it done! Creative and everyday goals are welcome. It's an open group: come when you can!
Time Management for Creative People will be presented at the Songwriter’s Guild of America on June 18th and 26th (both are Thursday evenings). That's next week, people! Please go to www.songwritersguild.com to sign up. First step in Time Management: put it on your calendars now! We’ll be talking about organizing, scheduling, and a lot more than that! As usual in my workshops, I’ll be addressing the special issues creative folks face in accomplishing left-brain activities such as managing time. We’ll be doing some fun right-brain activities, too. Managing time leads to increased success in your creative endeavors! So, what are you waiting for? Seating is (really and truly) limited, so reserve now. Kimberly’s waiting to hear from you!
Website News The to-do list to get www.UPositive.com up and running is showing some actual check-it's-done marks! The two May videos remain up on YouTube. Check them out and enter the creativity challenge! They'll be there throughout June, too; I'll aim to start new ones on a monthly basis in July. Does anyone know how to create a virtual party for the day when www.UPositive.com is up and running?
My first eBook, Goal Attainment for Creative People, will available from the Webite as soon as it's active. I’m also busy creating some fun products---coffee mugs, T-shirts, caps, magnets, etc.---related to creativity, goal attainment, and just plain silliness. Does anyone out there know how to maneuver in CafePress.com?
CREATIVITY & MADNESS (2nd look)
There’s actually an annual week-long seminar out in Santa Fe that I’m planning to attend one of these years, by that title. Intriguing workshops, though most are based on examining the work of a particular well-known artist (broadest definition of the term), usually past, in the light of their mental health issues or personality quirks. It leaves much to be desired, as far as I can tell, but the title of the retreat draws me to it, hopefully not in the moth-to-flame kind of way.
What interests me much more are inquiries into the chicken-or-egg type of controversy over “madness” and creativity. Most of the studies I’ve read approach the topic with how the symptoms of a mental health diagnosis---such as depression, anxiety, or bipolar disorder---affect the creative process, either feeding it or detracting from it.
Many salient points are explored in those approaches: how the listlessness and lack of energy of depression keep writers from their work; how being unable to focus leaves many artistic works unfinished, frustrating the artist; how anxiety about failure or success leaves many works unmarketed, or even uncreated.
I like this approach, as it provides quite a bit of insight into problems my friends, colleagues, and clients face.
But it leaves something out. Something I’ve experienced myself, and something---once I broach the topic---many creative people relate to.
Avoiding creative action can exacerbate the symptoms of depression, anxiety, bipolar disorder, ADD, OCD, or any number of other “madnesses.” When I have stories or songs brewing inside me and don’t make the time to release them onto paper or laptop, a particular kind of frustration sets in. If I continue to avoid creating, the frustration turns to anger, or anxiety, or a cloudlike depression that begins to affect my mood and other activities. It slows me down, though I tend to try to speed up in everything I do.
Truth is, if I don't make time for the creative outflow, no matter how fast I think I'm doing everything else, I tend to wander in circles. It takes more hours to accomplish fewer tasks. My attention, my life-force, my internal Power is off-kilter, mucking up the clarity with which I otherwise work.
What are your experiences: does your anxiety/depression/etc. work for or against your creativity? Does your avoidance of creativity increase or decrease your mental-health symptoms? I'd love to read your thoughts on the topic!
--Batya
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