photo credit: Shyald

(This article contains reworked material from a post on my previous blog, ‘Cliffjump!’)

Steven Pressfield wrote a post yesterday called ‘Do It Anyway‘, which got me thinking. It’s about powering through the “first I have to…” conditions and excuses we create to justify putting off our creative work. I wrote a comment:

By giving any playtime whatsoever to the ‘first I have to’ demons, we are giving ourselves permission to delay, hedge our bets, stew a little while longer, and generally talk ourselves off the ledge of doing something that might put us at risk of being laughed at. This is directly at odds with the permission we actually need to give ourselves, which is to get on with it, to try and (possibly) fail – or, just as possibly, ace it.

… And then I realized I had more to say. I’m not sure it’s quite as easy as Just Doing It. If it were, a lot more work (creative and otherwise) would get done. The fears that hold us back are more complex than that, they are deep and deeply intertwined. And they become even more insidious when we reconstruct them into habits and systems of rationalized Resistance – to use Pressfield’s own term.

I am not convinced that brute force is the best way to break through these barriers. The excuses we make often cover up old, deep, or very raw wounds, and simply tearing off the bandages might not be wise, or even possible, for everyone. It might work sometimes, for some people, but for many I think it may take more than sheer force of will.

Set up the dominoes

I’ll be discussing this more, and offering my own ‘program’ for getting past barriers, in the upcoming Cliffjump! Manifesto. In the meantime, I’d like to offer one remedy that is perhaps a little easier to put into action than simply not making the excuses you’re currently making.
Read the rest of this entry

photo credit: dr_tr

I’ve been listening, for the last week or so, to an audio ‘course’ called Question The Rules *, by Lee Stranahan and Johnny B. Truant. I’ve put the word ‘course’ in quotes because it’s intentionally quite loosely organized – a quantity (a large quantity, actually) of audio segments around the theme of the ‘Punk Rock, DIY Attitude’ as applied to life, business, creativity, spirituality and so on.

It’s a fun course. The tone is informal, the two main presenters are engaging and funny, and their conversations are rambling but peppered with pithy insights into how those of us who don’t quite go with the normal flow (or flow with the normal go, for that matter!) can make the most of this instead of letting it hold us back. Since I seem to be stuck with that tendency, it seemed a good fit, and indeed I’m finding it validating and encouraging. These are good things! Read the rest of this entry

photo credit: alicepopkorn

I played an audition last week. For a gig that would really smooth over some bumps in our financial stability, at a big (actually I am told it’s the biggest theatre stage in the world!) and ultra-professional stage show. In all honesty it is artistically not my highest goal in life, but there are not so many solid jobs left for musicians and it’s an opportunity I’m not in a position to blow off.

However, that’s really not what this is about. What’s it about then? In a word, confidence.

It’s been a while since I did one of these auditions and I wasn’t sure how I was going to handle it. I should clarify that I rarely ever get any kind of stage fright when actually performing; after thousands of times in front of audiences ranging from rather small to very big indeed, I generally don’t let that particular breed of anxiety get the better of me.

Auditions, however (and exams, though they are likely a thing of the past for me now) have always been a different story. They have always brought out the worst in me, all the self-judgment and second-guessing that this blog is all about transcending. In performance, the feeling that everyone is picking apart your work looking for flaws is largely imaginary; in an audition, it’s entirely real – in fact it’s the whole point. And it’s been an Achilles heel for me as long as I can remember.

This time was different: I found myself with an unexpected feeling of confidence, and I’m interested in uncovering where it might have come from. Let’s break it down. Read the rest of this entry

photo credit: Quinn Dombrowski

I’ve just finished reading a little ebook by Mark Silver called Backwards, and it’s got me thinking about a few things. It’s a free download (you don’t even have to opt in!) so if the following piques your interest, head on over and grab yourself a copy!

The basic proposition seems to be that in terms of ‘getting what you want’ in life, or building a life you want to live, the popular Law Of Attraction / Manifestation concept might be putting the cart before the horse. Silver offers a ‘heart-centered’ Sufi perspective on how to go about it the other way around. I started thinking about how this might apply to creativity…

I’m not sure the book is for everyone, but I feel it’s a very sincere and powerful little document and well worth a read if you’re open-minded about such things. That said, if the notion that a mystical/gnostic tradition with roots in Islam might have something profound to offer to the modern world is upsetting to you or challenges your core beliefs in ways that make you uncomfortable, you should probably steer clear; then again, you might not be in the right place here, either… Read the rest of this entry