Something New Under the Sun?

Has it all been done before?

In the past week I spoke to two people, one a friend and one a coaching client, who were struggling with their creativity in similar ways. Both questioned: Why Bother? Hasn’t it all been done before? Haven’t all the stories for songs been written a million times? Haven’t all the books been written? There’s nothing new to write, or paint, or express.

Those who know me know one of my favorite sayings: “There’s always something new under the sun!” (which, yes, you’ll find on products at www.cafepress.com/UPositive).

So, it got me thinking again, about the “why bother?” And, yet again, it seems that the answer lies in my favorite place: the distinction between the right and left hemispheres of the brain; the logical vs the creative/emotional.

It’s true, things have been done before: The facts of things, the statements, the specific expression of emotions. So, sure, the Left Brain convinces us that there’s nothing new to express so the Right Brain might as well go back to sleep.

But that’s not the whole truth. What makes creativity so powerful aren’t the facts that are expressed, but the particular way of expressing the facts.

For instance, I can read a book about right vs wrong written by a theologian. My reaction would most likely be, hmmmm, interesting. I’d put the book down and be on my way. Or, I could read a book about vampires, where the choice of right vs wrong is extremely complicated in a fictional way, and I’ll be fascinated, and I’ll finish the book and put it down and wander around for days mulling over the choices of right vs wrong.

My left-brain friend (unnamed here), can read the same two books, throw the vampire one in the recycle bin and wander for days reviewing the theologian’s version.

We’re so individual that different approaches to the same topic reach into us each in different ways. To get to our hearts and souls, to create even the potential for change and growth in each person, there must be choices in reaching us. What works for me won’t work for my brother, or my friend, or you. Or maybe it will.

It’s the way you express your creativity, your individual voice (or motion, or color combination, or brush stroke) that is of utmost importance, not the plot line, or the brand of your toe shoes, or being able to draw a straight line.

That’s a long way around to saying that it’s essential that every person with an urge to create does so, in their own style. Because your creation has not been done before, ever, and never will be done again because it’s you that makes it new and fresh and unique.

(For those who are religious, another argument: If you believe that God created the world, then you believe that everything that exists was created in those first seven days. The only new thing to do is to recombine the elements God put on the Earth for us to “play” with.)

So, to everyone, create away!!

--Batya

Permission Granted

News!
Website is almost fully functioning---please visit it at www.UPositive.com. I’d love feedback. The email link isn’t quite working yet, but we’re getting the kinks out. Email remains UPositive55@aol.com for the time being.

Products are halfway there! Nine of the first 18 sayings are available on T-shirts, mugs, coasters, mousepads, magnets, caps, and bumper stickers! Check them out at http://www.cafepress.com/UPositive. Remember---Christmas decorations are out in some stores already, so it’s about time to stock up on stocking stuffers and gifts for yourself and others! If you see a saying you like but would prefer it on a different product, drop me an email and I’ll see what I can do.

SEPTEMBER 19—BIG OFFICIAL UPositive OPENING PARTY!! If you’re in Nashville, TN, drop me an email at UPositive55@aol.com and I’ll send you an invite. Door prizes, fun, great networking opportunity for everyone! Food and wine and creative people everywhere!

PERMISSION GRANTED

One of the joys of my career is to watch people as they realize that going for their personal and professional goals really is ‘okay.’ So many people learn (from parents, teachers, religious leaders, etc.) that working toward their heart’s and soul’s desire is ‘selfish,’ or ‘impossible,’ or ‘just a pipe dream.’

It isn’t. Those things that excite you, that impassion you, that fire up the light in your eyes and the energy in your face---those are goals to go for!

There are clients who come to me hoping it’s okay to say aloud the dreams they’ve carried around silently. That tense up when we start describing and outlining those dreams, taking the first steps toward changing them into goals. As they see the steps emerge on paper…actual actions they can take to live the life they really want…a transformation occurs.

I love watching it.

The anxiety drops and their faces clear. The hazy dullness of their eyes clears and sparks fly. Their backs straighten and their shoulders drop and open. Their voices shift, soften yet become stronger. They breathe deeper. Sometimes they cry.

They become their selves---their centered, empowered selves.

I’m blessed to be present during their transformation, and very thankful that they allow me to see it and experience it with them.

So let me give you all permission---right here and right now---to turn your dreams into goals, your goals into steps, your actions into success!

(Really, you need no one’s permission, except your inner self: but, sometimes, hearing it from someone else helps.)

(One caveat: this applies to dreams and goals that do no harm to others---of course.)

Have any of you experienced this? The moment when you have permission---from yourself or someone else---to claim your dreams? What did it feel like? What changed for you?

---Batya

Preparation, or the Fixin' To of Goal Attainment

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/. I'll be guiding people through a supportive process of getting to the goals they've already chosen. This is the Getting It Done! chance for success! 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 in June. June is soon, people! Please go to www.songwritersguild.com to sign up. I’ll be presenting the seminar over two evenings: Thursdays, June 19th and 26th. 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. Conquering time management (yes, wear your chain-mail outfits!) leaves you more time to succeed with 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 now less than a page long, double-spaced! The two May videos are up on YouTube, though they need a little tweaking, which should be done by tomorrow (Tuesday). Check them out and enter the creativity challenge! I think they'll be there for 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, should be ready in about a week. It'll be available on the Website, so please look for it there! I'm also trying to create some fun products related to creativity, goal attainment, and just plain silliness. Does anyone out there know how to maneuver in CafePress.com?


Preparation, or the Fixin' To of Goal Attainment

Since moving to the mid-South a little more than a decade ago, it took a while to figure out what "fixin' to" meant. Didn't you just decide to do something, wake up in the morning, and do it? What's this "fixin' to" thing?

I figured it out when I painted my house. Waking up one morning, I was determined to paint the living room. So I went and picked a paint color. Then I bought the right brushes and rollers. Since I planned on faux paint, I needed to test out a number of bags/rags/cloths until I found the one that produced the right effect. Reading the labels of the various paints came next. Laying down painter's cloth...taping the edges of the walls...stopping for lunch...answering the phone...changing into clothes I could get rid of at the end of the project...covering my hair...by the time I was ready, it was too late in the evening to get started.

I'd been busy all day---I swear I was! Exhausted! But not a wall had been painted, not even touched by a brush or roller or rag. So what had I done?

That's where the "fixin' to" started making sense. I hadn't been painting, but I'd sure spent the whole day fixin' to paint!

What does this have to do with goal attainment?

Everything. It isn't enough to write a hasty list of goals and expect that you'll start in the morning and attain them. Being successful requires planning, takes time, needs effort, and demands attention to detail. It's worth the time and energy to wrestle your goals into shape, organize them into an outline or plan, divide them into steps that are small enough to accomplish one day at a time, and affirm them regularly.

Anything worth doing is worth doing well. Doing something well necessitates preparation.

Successful chefs have assistants whose only job is to prep the meal: cut the veggies, line up the ingredients, etc. How many rehearsals does it take before a performance is presented to the public? I'm on the fifth draft of my first novel...and I'm sure it needs a sixth and seventh.

Your future success is worth proper preparation. Take the time to luxuriate in the visualizations; write and rewrite your goals in positive wording; schedule the small steps that you can accomplish this week and next.

So get fixin'! You'll be ahead of the game and so much closer to attaining your dreams!

--Batya

Creativity & Madness

Reminder:
The Nashville Goal-Attainment Meetup begins Tuesday, May 13 at 6 pm. Please sign up for this empowering group at http://self-improvement.meetup.com/279/. I'll be guiding people through a supportive process of getting to the goals they've already chosen. This is the Getting It Done! chance for success! Creative and everyday goals are welcome.

Time Management for Creative People will be presented at the Songwriter’s Guild of America in June. June is soon, people! Please go to www.songwritersguild.com to sign up. I’ll be presenting the seminar over two evenings: Thursdays, June 19th and 26th. 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. Conquering time management (yes, wear your chain-mail outfits!) leaves you more time to succeed with 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
www.UPositive.com might be up within the week. Feel free to say a little cyber-prayer for me, if you feel so moved. I spent a lot of time yesterday with my brilliant Web-designer/mistress Debbie Gordon (www.digiroo.com) reviewing what’s left before going live. I have a lot of writing to do this week. Lance has a lot of video editing to do this week. And Debbie has a lot of magic tricks to do to wrest “UPositive” domain from Yahoo! Seems Yahoo has spent the last few years tricking people and kidnapping their domain names; if you’ve signed up for “private” registration on there, you may never get your name back. We’ll see---I’m in Nashville, after all, and “when in Nashville, do as the streets do…change your name midway between here and there.” I’m thinking of starting a class-action suit against Yahoo, so if any of you have had a similar problem, please let me know. In the meantime, I’m still using UPositive55@aol.com as an email addy.

Creativity and Madness
There’s an annual conference with this name, held in Santa Fe, New Mexico every summer. I’d love to go, but haven’t gotten there yet. It’s arranged by the American Institute of Medical Education, which may explain the list of topics, which often include studies of specific artists/writers/etc. who have cut off ears, stuck heads in gas ovens, raged naked through the streets…you get the idea. They also have a smattering of talks overlaying psychotherapeutic theories on the works of various earlier artists (so they can’t argue, I suppose), as well as one or two discussions about First-Peoples’ approaches to emotional healing (wherein creativity and spirituality were more likely to mix).

Do you detect a hint of cynicism here? (who me?)

I’ve long disdained the myth (my term) that creative people are more likely than the general population to be “mad,” or suffering from mental illness, or the converse: that the mentally ill are more likely than the general population to be creative. For the past 20+ years I’ve worked with creative people as well as in community mental health clinics, where I’ve seen the entire gamut of diagnoses and a very wide range of individuals (age, size, race, ethnicity, religion, gender, political leaning, etc.). While there were certainly some very creative folks that sat across the therapy room from me, I seriously doubt the percentage was higher than if I’d been sitting in a large restaurant, or Grand Central Station. I ran a writing group for a clinic that served the recently-detoxed substance abuse population of Brooklyn, NY. Some absolutely brilliant pieces came out the ink end of their pens, but so did some poorly written work.

Last week the New York Times printed an article about this topic. They came to a similar conclusion: that no, you don’t need a mental health diagnosis---or the symptoms---to be creative. And mental illness is not a prerequisite for creativity. A number of highly successful writers reported that they would have been even more productive without the ups and downs of bipolar disorder; or the periodic, devastating inability to accomplish anything resulting from severe depression; or the fear of creating something imperfect stemming from anxiety.

So what does it take in order to be creative that has fed the myth of creativity-and-madness?

In talking with my friend (and struggling writer) Rose Marie, I came upon the theory that creativity requires an intense connection to the experience of life. The courage, I’d say (see previous blog on this topic), to let your defenses down and allow yourself to really feel the world around you, the people around you, the emotions and reactions and beliefs and energies that are present. Sometimes these are heart-wrenchingly sad, sometimes quake-in-the-boots scary, sometimes gut-shakingly funny.

Rather than requiring “madness,” which in all its forms distorts how we experience life, creativity requires strength, opening to intense emotion and thought, reaching our center, the clarity of hope and possibility. Creativity is more "magic" than "madness": you put life in one end and out the other comes a poem, a dance, a painting, a statue. Or like alchemy: put in base metals and produce the gold.

I’d love to hear your thoughts, arguments, questions about this topic! Perhaps your experience proves me wrong? Perhaps you’ve struggled with one or the other side of creativity-and-madness in your life? Please share your thoughts---whatever they are. Thanks!

--Batya