The Courage to Be Creative

“If we do not let go, we make prisoners of ourselves. To be fully free to create, we must first find the courage and willingness to let go.”

- Gordon MacKenzie
Author, Orbiting the Giant Hairball

Whenever I lack inspiration, there are two sources that I go back to: Gordon MacKenzie’s book, Orbiting the Giant Hairball, and Steven Pressfield’s The War of Art. Both are masters of the creative process. Why masters? They approach it from a truly professional, authentic, and holistic perspective.

If you are trying to tweak something, MacKenzie’s advice won’t do much for you. But if you are designing a reinvention of yourself or an organization, he’s spot on. Recently, I’ve been working on a reinvention-type project for a client, and one critical piece of the puzzle is missing. When I think about it, I feel stuck, wondering fruitlessly what I’m going to do about it. You know the feeling--it’s that unproductive, going-around-in-circles conversation you have with yourself about how you’re going to get out of this pickle, while deep down inside you’re just wishing that you weren’t in the situation in the first place.

I finally found success in learning to let go of that “critical” piece. And it turns out that while it would have been nice to have it, I can create a piece that will fit the puzzle just fine. In fact, I’ve realized that this new piece will be far better than the old one because of the creative process I will use in constructing it.

In that project that you’re working on or the solution you’re trying to develop--one where you’re feeling stuck and not making the kind of progress you’d like to make--ask yourself one simple question:

What am I clinging to?

Once you’ve answered the question, taking the next steps will get you back in motion:

1) Bravely let go--accept the situation as it is. You can’t change the past...but you can influence the future.
2) Remember that there’s always more than one way to solve a problem, and set the positive expectation that you will find an alternative.
3) Answer these questions, “What would that thing have given to me? Now that I’ve let it go, what else could give me the same thing?”
4) Go for it!

As you take these steps, you’ll find that you’ve freed yourself from the prison you constructed. Here’s to being fully free to create great things...Cheers!