MIND • BODY • SPIRIT
Awakening the Alchemy of Creativity: Three Tips to Tackle Perfectionism & Find Your Flow
block and letting ideas simmer. (You’ll feel it if you pay attention.) I like to consciously put a challenging project into slow cooking-mode when I feel engaged but stalled, letting it simmer without interfer- ing. There’s always something else you could be doing while your subcon- scious works away in the background. If you can avoid self-judgment and keep your creative muscles active, eventually the puzzle you think you can’t solve becomes a breakthrough. The trick is to make room for your whole self, and trust the mystery. It makes the challenging, wonderful, maddening, magi- cal process fun. 3. Remember, wherever you are in the process, you are your own best interpreter. So many of us look for friends and colleagues who provide a valuable outside perspective. I see over and over again that creatives who trust their own process develop a strong and au- thentic gut instinct for what’s needed and what’s true. When you let others define what’s working, you give away your power. Find ways to dive deep into
test these three tips to actualize your creative alchemy. With practice, you’ll learn your way forward into a golden opportunity, one step at a time! And whatever your final goal, these strate- gies can help you do what all creatives need to do: turn perfectionism into passionate productivity. 1. All creative work is an experi- ment. I’m a journalist and a creative writer, with experience writing news columns, blogs, grants, plays, fiction and poetry. I’ve learned that every project is a commitment to exploration – a process not an end product. You may think you know what you want to make. You may have a clear sense of your audi- ence or your hoped-for impact. You may even have a detailed plan. But if you rule out the possibility of surprise, you close the door to magic. When you think about your work as an experiment, your first steps will lead you to insights you never anticipated, making room for second and third expansions that add pol- ish, clarity, and power. 2. The backburner is your friend. There’s a difference between a creative
purposefully measure our success by external rules, turning guidelines like plot structure, style, procedures, cul- tural stereotypes, marketing expecta- tions, or other limitations into dogma. Then, it doesn’t take long to feel stuck, bored, or anguished about a project. There’s a time and a place for follow- ing professional and stylistic guide- lines. They’re especially handy when you’re preparing your final work for launch. They should be part of your process—but not the first step! The magic of a creative work is much more mysterious, part of a fabulous and of- ten unpredictable alchemy unique to your vision and gifts. If you shackle yourself with formu- las before you even begin creating, you’ll hobble your energy and your purpose. Most of today’s rules are ei- ther traditional blueprints from estab- lished leaders or marketing strategies. Useful guidelines, yes, but hardly the Ten Commandments! Choose what works for you and create something that expresses your unique vision, ex- perience or voice to shine in the world. Whether you’re stuck in that perfec- tionist dead end or not, just for today
BY CAROL BURBANK
The world desperately needs cre- atives now. We are the storytellers, the translators, the innovators, finding out- of-the-box solutions to the out-of-hand challenges that call us to action. Now is the time for writers, artists, healers, and inventors to dive deep into the al- chemy of creativity with courage and curiosity. Unfortunately and inevitably, it’s one of those simple but not easy puz- zles. All our tools and trainings, all our passion and planning can be derailed, if we fall prey to the creative’s curse: perfectionism. Experienced and beginner creators alike share one maddening character- istic: they want the end result to be perfect. Perfection, they imagine, will mean success: publication, a gallery show, clients without symptoms, or a world-changing patent. In reality, the search for perfection ends in the cul- de-sac of blocked energy! Ironically, perfectionism often starts with too much thinking, meaning over- planning, over-research, and over- talking. Most of us unconsciously or
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PATHWAYS—Spring 21—35
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