Success Blog #5 When Reality Strikes—Creativity Crashes?

Probably everyone out there has heard the old saying, “If life gives you lemons; make lemonade.” When setting those goals we’ve been talking about in the last few weeks, did you suddenly discover that some of the things which you thought would be so easy to accomplish wound up showing you how much you need to do to even reach the small ones? Did you get depressed and throw away the notebook? Did you give up?

I hope not. When I wrote out my goals and began to work on them, I found that even the small ones had smaller ones that needed to be met for me to succeed in my own writing, and assisting with others publishing, marketing, and promoting needs. Two things happened from establishing my goals.

1. I could see a pathway to increasing my book sales and a way to do it by coordinating my efforts and organizing myself in the realm of social media, blogs, and getting the word out about my products, services, and books.
2. I could see that there was much to learn and many pitfalls to face along the way. For instance, I didn’t know how much money I needed to make for a monthly budget to be met. I needed to keep better tabs on my book sales, and even personal business. For a couple of days, I felt overwhelmed and realized that the reason goal setting was not successful for me in the past was because it uncovered weaknesses that needed to be addressed and that I wanted to ignore.

I am sharing this with you to say, if you have experienced this and thought, I can’t do this. It is too hard. Don’t throw in the towel yet. Most of all, realize that this is a time to let your creativity rule and brainstorm openly with yourself for ways to complete the goals you can and re-establish the goals you can’t reach immediately. When Thomas Edison said that he had found many ways not to make a light bulb, he was really saying, I’m not quitting and everything I learned, even from failures, brings me one step closer to success.

So, when reality strikes and you feel overwhelmed and stressed out, and you feel like writer’s block sets in, take a moment, step back, and give yourself permission to fail, but more importantly, give yourself permission to try again.

Creativity never crashes it is just like a flower, at its highest point it blooms beautifully in the garden of your mind. At its lowest, it is sometimes wilting and ready to shed. But there is good news, the reason flowers fall from the vine is often so that fruit can grow, and the reason fruit grows is to provide shared wealth and to produce more fruit. So, yes there are times when you will not feel as “creatively” blooming. Don’t let that stop you from knowing that growth and life is a cycle.

Coach Nikki B will be addressing some ways to stoke the fires of your creative mind. I will add a couple of extras below:

1. Take a fifteen-minute break each hour, get up, walk around
2. Listen to music that inspires you. Write while you listen. Let yourself write whatever comes into your mind.
3. If you are feeling stressed and blocked. Sit up straight in a chair. Place your hands palms together in front of your chest. Close your eyes and breathe in to a count of four. As you count raise your hands palms together over your head. Once your hands are up in the air, bring them down slowly keeping palms together as you exhale. While doing this motion, allow yourself to be conscious of your own heartbeat. Use your mind to visualize stress leaving with each exhale and peace and creativity being installed with each inhale.
4. Try painting, or using color to allow your imagination to flow.

Once you’ve taken this time for yourself, it is time to reevaluate and reestablish whatever you are doing, whether it is goal setting or writing, editing, or publishing.

One of the good things which have come from setting my goals and keeping a list of items accomplished in a day has been a feeling of happiness that occurs after recognizing progress. I am more productive, less weighted down, and my creativity levels are rising again. It is as if I am getting rid of a lot of weight, and now I can lift off the ground with a new bounce in my step.

So, in ending, don’t stop, give yourself some slack, and remember that failure is just one step closer to knowing the right pathway to take.  Feel free to scroll down to the Leave a Comment box at the bottom of this page and place a remark or question.