Life+Work

Get Your Crayons Back: How to Win Over Your Inner Critic and Recapture Your Creative Self

My work requires me to be creative and confident. If I don’t figure out how to set strategy for my business and come up with great ideas for what to do next, I won’t be successful. Those of you who are in a senior leadership position or self-employed know what I’m talking about.

So how do you wake up every day and get creative? I find myself in near-continual creative crisis, which might surprise friends and colleagues to hear. I generally look like I have my business act together and take far more creative risks in life than the average person, including venturing into making visual art late in life. But keeping a clear channel open to my creativity is a big hassle in my life. Right now I have a lot of business development work to get done that requires my best creative thinking and most days feel like a slog. Days can go by with nothing important accomplished. My inner critic, desperately trying to keep me from creating and going public with something really foolish, wins.

Isn’t it easy when someone compliments and encourages you? I always have a streak of brilliant productivity. Finding external sources of motivation and inspiration is a useful strategy. I’ve created some wonderful master mind groups and co-coaching partnerships with colleagues to give myself regular doses of external inspiration and validation. But it’s a temporary fix. In the end, it’s still you sitting by yourself doing the work, slogging it out with your inner critic.

I find my inner critic leaves me vulnerable to being derailed not only by myself but by people who could potentially give me inspiration and validation—a serious flaw in relying only on external sources. Last fall a dear friend asked repeatedly if she could watch me create my metal and neon art. I think I’m not very exciting to watch, but I said yes. It was kind of flattering to have someone be so interested in my process. I’d been telling her about a piece I was working on called “The Heart Revealed.” I liked the concept—how opening our heart up can feel like tearing ourselves open to reveal tender chambers that don’t often see the light of day. But I didn’t like how the piece was coming together—the metal being peeled back to reveal a slender stroke of pale lavender neon inside a dark chamber didn’t look enough like a tear. It just wasn’t edgy enough.

I forgot to tell my friend it was all very metaphorical, so when she saw the piece she asked a logical question, “Where’s the heart?” I tried not to let the question bother me, but it snuck in through the door my inner critic had left open and took up residence. I have not been back in my studio since. After almost nine years of making art without flinching at what anyone thought, it took me by surprise.

I realize that although I successfully managed my critical voice for years while making art, I have not learned to do that as well when I write or take risky new steps in my coaching business. As a result, during the last three years of trying to find my creative voice in business my inner critic has gotten a lot of air time, which is now spilling over into my art work.

To set business strategy for a bold new direction, create a new breakthrough idea or product, or create a work of art, we have to get into a productive relationship with our inner critic.

My brother, always a great gift-giver, just gave me the perfect birthday present: the dark, cynical and quite funny Hugh MacLeod’s (gapingvoid.com) book, “Ignore Everybody, and 39 Other Keys to Creativity.” This blog-to-book is the perfect read for your inner critic. It’s full of great advice and sarcastic wit that puts things in perspective for your inner critic, like:

1. Ignore everybody. You don’t know if your idea is any good the moment it’s created. Neither does anyone else. MacLeod’s first chapter is a great analysis of how resistance to change and power dynamics with friends and business colleagues play into how our inner critic rushes in to protect us. I often say fear is your friend; this first chapter usefully connected the dots on relationship dynamics I wasn’t fully conscious of yet.

2. The idea doesn’t have to be big. It just has to be yours. The more the idea is yours alone, the more freedom you have to do something really amazing. This chapter does a 180 reframe on why it’s great to try stupid things no one else is doing. Put a big smile on my face.

4. Good ideas have lonely childhoods. …the better the idea, the more “out there” it initially will seem to other people, even people you like and respect. Useful insights on how and why new ideas get squelched by your boss, your team, and your close friends. Helped me remember that several great things I've created in my life, like my current co-housing arrangement, had most of my friends and family very concerned and skeptical at first.

6. You are responsible for your own experience. Nobody can tell you if what you’re doing is good, meaningful, or worthwhile. The more compelling the path, the more lonely it is. A little chapter full of straight talk to the inner critic busy calling your latest effort stupid: generally speaking, only comfortable, familiar (aka second-rate) ideas get big applause the minute they’re born. Buck up and carry on with your stupid idea. All the best ones are.

7. Everyone is born creative; everyone is given a box of crayons in kindergarten. Then when you hit puberty they take the crayons away and replace them with dry, uninspiring books on algebra, history, etc. Being suddenly hit years later with the “creative bug” is just a wee voice telling you, “I’d like my crayons back, please.” A completely fabulous chapter on how to listen to yourself and sort out creative voices from critic voices.

There’s 35 more gems in this little book that Seth Godin calls “a work of art, a brilliant insight, a book that will change your life.” I agree. Go get your own copy. Find your “box of crayons,” whatever that is now. Let’s all go make surprising stuff happen.

 

With public thanks to my brother and Hugh for helping me find my way back to myself: I made a date with an artist friend to work together in my studio this Friday. I have several ideas for next pieces I can’t wait to get out and start playing with. I have not one but five new blog posts I’m having fun working on. And I am dusting off notes for a class I began creating two years ago and bringing them with me to a seminar I’m taking this weekend to get some feedback. I feel ready for whatever people have to say to me.

I’d love to hear about what you want to create, where you struggle with your creativity in work or life and what you’ve found helps you unleash yourself.

 

Fear is Your Friend

With all the "think positive" advice out there, what's a person to do with their fear, anxiety, worry and other “negative” emotions? Block them? Stomp them out?

I have found it useful for myself and my coaching clients to think of fear as a friend. All of our behaviors, beliefs and feelings have a positive intention behind them. Constricting feelings like fear and anxiety exist to keep us safe from something, like failure, embarrassment or pain. They broadcast loudly to get our attention. (Robert Dilts, an outstanding thought-leader in NLP, provides excellent detail on the concept of positive intention.)

What I do with constricting emotions like fear, worry and anxiety makes all the difference. If I let them hobble me and stop my progress, then I’ve missed their gift. If I stop and listen carefully to those emotions, there's always a useful message about what I want and need to feel balanced and take the next steps along my path. 

Here's some questions you can ask to do this for yourself:

1. What is something you keep feeling, thinking or saying to yourself that drains your energy or makes you hesitate to move forward?
   
   For example, I used to dread international travel. My thoughts and feelings before a trip were not excitement about going to a new country, they were all dread and anxiety about being trapped in a plane for 12+ hours. It took me enormous emotional energy to prepare for a trip when so much of me was in resistance to getting on the plane.
   
   
2. Ask yourself how this thought, feeling or image is trying to help you; for example, is it trying to show you a way in which you could be better prepared?
   
   When I listened more closely to the travel anxiety, I specifically kept imagining how uncomfortable I was going to be during the long flight. I saw myself not sleeping, feeling my legs twitch, my back ache. These are all things that happen to me regularly and would in fact keep me from being fresh enough to work effectively when I arrived.
   
   
3. What actions can you take to address your underlying concern and resolve the anxiety, worry, doubt or fear?
   
   I used my specific concerns to plan my trip better: book an aisle seat, look into mileage upgrade, consult with a Feldenkrais practicioner to find out how to sit more comfortably, get permission to fly in a day earlier, ask well-traveled friends what they did to fly comfortably. The result of taking all these steps was gaining a whole new set of useful travel strategies that continues to give me a feeling of complete inner calm before international travel. I listened to my anxiety and it no longer needs to broadcast loudly. The most amazing result? I've even learned how to sleep on a plane.
   

Here's a story based on a client's experience (name and details changed for privacy):

One of my coaching clients Peter had taught a couple of training classes at work and loved it. He knew he wanted to do more and hoped some day training would be a regular part of his role. When a re-organization at work gave him a new opportunity to train a class, he immediately said yes. The class was being sponsored by his new manager Teresa, who would likely be in the room observing him. He’d heard Teresa had very high standards and he found himself nervous about training with her at the back of the room watching.

Peter decided to take action and really brush up on his training technique. He had seen me train several times and admired my training style and presence, so he called me for some short-term coaching on how to be an even more effective trainer. We had a great first session, during which he enthusiastically committed to several follow-up steps. We made an appointment to meet again in two weeks.

At our next coaching session, Peter reported having a terrible two weeks. Every time he thought about training the class, all he could think about was his new manager Teresa sitting at the back of the room watching him. The more he tried to concentrate on preparing for the class, the louder his fears got. He began having nightmarish dreams about the training going badly—participants clearly bored or openly challenging his knowledge, completely forgetting what the class was about, having his words get caught in his throat. All the while with Teresa as a dark figure at the back of the room, staring at him as he failed miserably, taking notes on everything he was doing wrong. He was a wreck.

He was embarrassed to admit that he had not completed a single one of the follow-up steps. Yes, he thought they were all excellent ideas. No, it wasn’t that he had run out of time. “All I can think about is not being able to control Teresa’s opinion of me,” he finally confessed.

I observed that it sounded like his fear of training in front of Teresa had him paralyzed. "Part of that fear is really valid—you want to do well in front of her, you know she has high standards, and you were already feeling like your training technique could be better,” I said. “Do you know what specifically Teresa considers hallmarks of good training? It seems like not knowing what would work for her leaves you worrying that she could criticize everything you do.”

Peter was initially resistant to asking Teresa about her training standards. He worried that she would take his questions as a sign of weakness. But the more he sat with the idea, the more he realized that without specific information on what she was looking for, his mind was left to make up worst case scenarios.

We listened to his worry about talking with Teresa--he wanted to look confident, not weak. So we planned out questions that he felt confident asking, like "What would success look like for you with this class?" and "In your experience, what are great qualities in a trainer?" These questions felt less personal and more naturally professional for Peter to ask Teresa.

After talking with Teresa, Peter felt calm and relaxed. He knew exactly what to emphasize in his training and how to best leverage his trainer style to be successful in front of Teresa. The most useful result for Peter was that he remained calm and relaxed even when he hit a few bumps, which allowed him to gracefully course correct and continue on with the training day.

Move Toward Desire to Reach Your Goal

I woke up one day with 15 pounds on me that had never been there before. Do you know this one? I know I was there every day while it happened, but somehow it snuck up on me and I was living in a body that didn’t seem to be my own. I missed myself. 

Suddenly I was faced with the mountain of advice and struggle that so many people I know go through every day. For a year I struggled to pick out what might work best for me and give it a try. No results. A lot of money spent. A litany of reasons why I couldn’t work out today, why I couldn’t make more changes in my diet.

And then one day I cracked the code. “Was it diet or exercise?” a friend asked me excitedly, sure that the answer was in one of these pillars of weight loss strategies. The answer is neither. It is my mind, my internal state that has changed. It gives me free, easy access to both eating and living in a spontaneous state of actually craving what works best for me. I have effortlessly lost ten pounds and know that the next five to ten pounds will be just as much fun. Yes, I did just use that word: fun.

Here’s two critical things I do differently:

• Instead of looking in the mirror every day thinking “What a disaster!” and noticing how big I feel, I hold a vision of the body I want inside me. It’s more than just a picture in my mind. I actually imagine feeling that body, as if I had it already. “Be the change you want,” I tell myself. “Your body is getting lighter, stronger, healthier every day.”
• Instead of wrestling with myself every day about how I “should work out”, I set intention for wanting to do some kind of exercise or movement every day, then followed my natural desire. I ask myself, “What do I feel like doing today?” On days when I feel tired, it’s walking or yoga. On days when I have energy, I find I actually want to do something more active like a cardio routine, bike ride, or weights. I give myself permission to do even a few minutes of something.

As I focus on my desire, I am delighted to find that my body is now craving better food and more movement. I am no longer fighting myself, I am working with my natural desire and making progress continues to be effortless. 

These positive techniques are rooted in NLP, which I learned while I got my NLP Master Practioner and NLP Coach certifications. (I just burned a good hour trying to find a clear, succinct definition of NLP. Surprisingly hard to find. Here's a good quick definition, though I don't know anything about the training company behind it.) I found a number of specific weight loss techniques with NLP foundations that you might also find useful at HolisticOnline.com.

Managing Reality: Little Lies We Hide Behind Every Day

I’ve just been confronted, yet again, with the perils of “managing reality”—deciding that the full truth of what you’re feeling or thinking is not acceptable. It’s the role our egos play: managing the information going out so that we look good, make others feel good, or any other seemingly good reason that leads us to in effect lie to the world about what’s really true. I keep learning over and over that it’s a serious wedge in my relationships. The other person doesn’t really know me. They know Managed Me.

One of my good reasons is that I like my personal relationships to be harmonious. Not a bad goal. Perhaps not yours. But it’s been my goal as far back as I can remember: six years old, trying to get my two best friends Julie W and Julie C to stop fighting, shake hands and let us all be peaceable friends. As an adult, I catch myself doing a lot of things to keep the peace that aren’t always such clean simple gestures. I find myself not saying all of what I’m feeling. Or I clean up the truth and present it in such a nice package that the essential message gets blurry or worse, completely confused with another message I wasn’t intending.

Last week I actually created stress and upset by trying to manage it away. I was in a bad mood and answered a phone call I had planned not to take. A wise part of me knew that I needed space. But I didn’t clearly ask for this. I sent a pleasant email the night before saying I probably wouldn’t have time to talk in the morning. Not at all the same thing as saying “I’m in a horrible mood. Not up for talking—can you send me details in email?”

You’ve done something like this, haven’t you? Made an edit in what you said that seemed harmless at the time, but in fact was a really significant discrepancy between what you said and what was really going on inside you? My rationale was something like “Do I really need to discuss my bad mood? If I don’t bring it up I won’t have to talk about it or answer questions that could be stressful.”

When the phone rang, I knew I hadn’t really asked clearly for space and had the thought “it would be rude not to answer the phone.” I tried to be civil. Gritted my teeth through mounting anger about…I don’t even know what now. Everything we talked about seemed to get me more upset. Through it all, I did my best to be civil. Not surprisingly, the other person got off the phone thinking I was mad about the specifics of our conversation. It was needless, confusing upset about things that didn’t start out being the problem—a divide created where none existed. The real truth would have been so much simpler.

Today I re-commit myself to what often feels like ‘the way of the warrior’: take the risk to expose my real self and say the simple truth at the heart of what I’m thinking and feeling. What simple truths are you ready to take a risk and reveal?

Finding Difficult Answers by Living in the Question

I just had one of those super-charged days where answers to a large, thorny question I’ve been wrestling with suddenly came to me effortlessly, through relaxing, delightful conversations with friends. It was a question I’d sat with in mounting frustration, feeling I should be able to answer, but having my mind crowded with thoughts about what the answer might be, should be, couldn’t be—none leading to a satisfying resolution. The contrast with how effortlessly answers appeared while I relaxed and enjoyed my Saturday couldn’t have been more extreme. I wanted to bottle it. Make it available to myself, to others, anytime.

I rewound back to the point where I gave up actively trying to answer the question and noticed what I’d done instead of tackling the question head on. I realized this series of steps has worked for me before. Sometimes I forget what I already know...

Try this for yourself and let me know your experience.

• Let the question float in your mind. Hold it lightly, in the back of your thoughts.
• Set the intention that you want the answer to come to you. I experience this as an inner burning desire to know. I use the strength of the feeling like a magnet. You might create a similar magnet for yourself by hearing yourself or seeing a picture of yourself finding the answer in the future.
• Let it be ok that you don’t know the answer now. Let go of your frustration, any beliefs you have about how impossible it is to answer the question. Relax.
• Go engage fully in the present moment. I find taking a walk, driving the car, doing housekeeping, or enjoying time with friends are all useful strategies to get out of my head and into the present moment. Do what works best for you.
• Don’t require the answer to arrive immediately. In fact, some answers may take time to reveal themselves. Remember patience. This is “living in the question.”
  

I like what Rainer Maria Rilke said in his Letters to a Young Poet: ...have patience with everything unresolved in your heart and to try to love the questions themselves as if they were locked rooms or books written in a very foreign language. Don't search for the answers, which could not be given to you now, because you would not be able to live them. And the point is to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps then, someday far in the future, you will gradually, without even noticing it, live your way into the answer.

Developing Your Emotional Compass

An emotional compass can help you keep your mind and actions focused on positive forward movement towards a goal. So how do you develop a reliable compass?

1. Spend a few minutes thinking about your goal and where you are along the path to achieving it.
   1. Let yourself see the images you have associated with this goal, as well as any images you have of the actions you’ve taken towards your goal.
   2. Hear any sounds or audio track, such as your inner conversation with yourself or actual conversations you’ve had along the way.
   3. Now pause and notice what you are feeling inside, right now.
2. Take a moment and write down several adjectives that describe how you feel as you think about your goal and your progress towards it. Use words that describe what you’re feeling emotionally and physically. For example, you might be feeling anxious, stressed, with tense shoulders, clenched jaws. Or perhaps you feel happy, elated, with warm energy coursing through arms and chest, clear head, relaxed shoulders.
3. Now that you’ve checked in with your emotional compass, what do your feelings tell you about the direction you’re currently pointed?
4. What can you do to reorient yourself to face toward your destination?

Keep your emotional compass handy this week. Every time you think about or work towards your goal, notice how you’re feeling. Use your physical and emotional feelings as feedback on whether you’re heading in the right direction. Are you still focused on the refreshing beach or are you headed back to the desert? Make a conscious choice to redirect your thoughts on where you want to go.

Stay on Track With Your Goal Using Your Emotional Compass

We all have our good days and bad days, positive and negative thoughts. It’s part of being human. Staying on track with the right mind frame to accomplish our goals requires that we keep our focus on what we do want, not on what we lack or don’t want. One of my favorite teachers on the Law of Attraction is Dr. Robert Anthony. In his audio program The Secret of Deliberate Creation, he uses a wonderful travel metaphor to explain the importance of keeping your thoughts focused on your goal destination.

Here’s my version: Imagine you are taking a trip from your current state, let’s call that the desert in Arizona where you don’t have what you want, to your desired future state, which we’ll imagine is a refreshing beach on the California coast where you do have what you want. The journey to get from your current state to your desired future state takes time. If we are traveling in a car or a plane, it’s easy for us to understand how long the journey might take. But on a journey to accomplishing our goal, many of us get impatient with the time it takes. We doubt, we worry, we fret, and we turn our attention back to our starting point, to all the things we don’t have yet.

When you focus your mind and your actions on positive forward movement towards your goal, you’re heading towards your destination in California. Continually worrying that you’re not there yet, letting your mind spend a lot of time dwelling on doubt, anxiety, fear and so forth, is like constantly driving back to Arizona. It makes the trip take a lot longer.

Like using a compass to plot your route through difficult terrain, you have an emotional compass inside you that can give you feedback on whether you’re pointing your thoughts and feelings in the right direction to accomplish your goal. Positive or buoyant, energizing feelings like joy, confidence, deep desire, inner peace, feeling “on fire” with energy, wholeheartedness—these are all signs that you’re heading in the right direction. Negative or heavy feelings like doubt, insecurity, fear, anger, frustration, boredom—these are inner signals that you’re heading in the wrong direction. You need to pause, listen carefully to these inner signals to figure out what’s going on, then course correct.

Passion Mapping

In a previous post Notice What You Want, I commented that many people I coach have a desire to create something new in their life, but can’t figure out exactly what. They have a vague goal like “find a new career that let’s me be creative” or “get a job that inspires me". When I ask what creative would look like or what inspires them, I find most people don't really know. A common question I get from friends and colleagues familiar with my life and all the unusual opportunities I create for myself is "How do you think of all these possibilities for yourself? How do you know what you want to create next?"

What are your passions in life? What brings you joy and energy? These are the elements to begin with if you are searching for a new, more satisfying career or creative expression of yourself. What follows in an approach I first learned when facing a particularly difficult career transition. I have been refining it over the years. Now it never fails to help me locate and launch myself on a path to whatever I want to create next in my life.

Ready to try it for yourself? Allow your thoughts to flow freely and use a mind map approach to capture what you learn about yourself. If you feel inspired, add visuals. I sometimes sketch little icons. Some people paint or make collage images. You’re on an adventurous journey to unravel the clues, read the signs, and sort out the hidden messages you send to yourself about what you really want to create in your life—have fun! Here are ways to access yourself from different angles. Plan to do as much as you can in one sitting, then add to it over the week:

• Things I see and am attracted to
• Things I find myself thinking about
• What I dream about
• Things I love to do
• What makes my heart pulse, long, beat faster
• Things I love to talk about
• Ways I love to be in the world
• What am I happy to jump out of bed and go do

Go on an extended treasure hunt as you go through your week. Take notes on everything you notice that makes you really happy, gives you energy, or feeds you in some way. It could be something about your day, your interactions, your work, what you see and hear and feel. Take it all in and continue adding these details to your Passion Map.

When you're done, ask yourself:

• What patterns and themes emerge?
• What elements would you like to have integrated into your work?
• What elements do you want to add into other areas of your life?

What's most important: You don't have to know of a job that contains these elements. You just have to know what you love. Once you know that with full certainty, opportunities find you.

Notice What You Want

So many people I coach have a desire to create something new in their life, but can’t figure out exactly what. They set vague goals like “find a new career that let’s me be creative” or “get a job that inspires me”, but never actually make any progress because they can’t figure out what exactly they want to do. How do you unravel the clues, read the signs, and sort out the hidden messages you send to yourself about what you really want to create in your life?

I have done this for myself multiple times in life. I have it dialed in now, and it’s one of my favorite things to coach around, but the first time was like groping around in the dark. For years I thought I wanted to get an MFCC and become a psychotherapist. In the middle of grad school, on the cusp of doing my first internship, I started feeling huge inner resistance. With dismay, I realized this wasn’t the right path for me after all. Now what?

My job as a technical writer, a great way to put myself through school, became a nightmare to live as my sole career focus. Having no idea what to do next, I sought advice and input wherever I could find it: friends, colleagues, career counselors, astrologers, psychics, tarot readers. What I desperately wanted was someone to help me identify the exact career I should be pursuing and how to get there. What I got instead was a seemingly random set of insights into my talents and interests. It felt utterly frustrating at the time. My level of sarcasm about the situation hit an all-time high when the conversation with the career counselor boiled down to one essential truth: I was happiest when I was sitting in circles talking with people. I remember railing at the universe thinking, I’m having a total career meltdown and this is the big clue I get?! Sitting in circles with people??

It turned out to be a highly significant clue. As I sat with my small crumb of information, I began to notice where those circles of people existed in my current life: at work in team meetings and in corporate training sessions. I felt a glimmer of hope. Maybe what I was seeking was right in front of me. There’s details of the story I’ll save for another blog post, but the punch line is that a short time later, I found my way to the career path I’ve been on now for over 15 years: meeting facilitator and trainer. The rooms I work in always have people sitting in circles. I couldn’t be happier.

As I have refined my life and explored new passions, I’ve figured out a formula for locating and nurturing tiny clues into full blown life creations. Here is the first step. Try it out for yourself. I call it Passion Mapping.