Creative Steps

Would doing what Hemmingway did help you achieve more in your creative life?

One man thought so.

It turns out that author William Elliot Hazelgrove has managed to live out, to what some may be, a literary fantasy: he writes his novels in Ernst Hemmingway’s attic.

It was a serendipitous thing, born of luck, ability and perhaps an element of writer’s block. Hazelgrove was trying to find inspiration in a coffee shop having abandoned his attempts to write in his own home given the recent arrival of his new baby. It wasn’t working and he gave up, disheartened.

On the way home he passed the white Victorian house in which Hemmingway was born in 1899. He entered the house and asked the elderly lady who had turned the old house into a museum if it would be possible for him to find a place to write inside the house.

At first she was reluctant, but perhaps remembering that Hemmingway once described the suburb as “a village of broad lawns and narrow minds”, she succumbed.

Hazelgrove’s strange ‘ritual of ascending stairs to a musty old attic’ was born.

Perhaps we should all consider the impact that our workspace has on our creative output and perhaps we should also think of how we use rituals and routines to achieve more of what we want in our creative life.

Here are his own thoughts from his website.

“It is a complicated thing where one chooses to write. I have written in store rooms, basements, bedrooms, attics, spaces over garages, cottages, buttonhole apartments and just about every coffee house in America. Maybe criteria would be as simple as a place where one can be lost and no one will notice the man in the corner scribbling or typing or reading or just staring into blank space. There is nothing holy about one space over another but there must be some sort of anonymity of the sort that allows the writer to become whoever he or she wants for that time.

“While I write in other places as well — I do have an office over a garage that I share with the exhaust and the occasional field mouse — the attic is a touchstone, a place where one gets a glimmer of another time, maybe a simpler time, I don’t know. But certainly, once I am there and settled into my stiff-backed chair and I hear the squirrels chattering in the eaves and stare at the church in the distanced over the rooftops — I am very far away, at least for an hour or two.”

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Why is some art considered better than others?

Why is some art considered better than others and what does this evaluation do to our own creative output?

I recently read an article which argued that classical music was better than other types of music. Here is the author’s point of view:

“I disagree with the notion that popular music is on par with classical, that it’s all just a matter of personal preference. Embedded in that mindset is hostility to the idea that discriminating judgments can be made in art, that hierarchies of value exist, or, indeed, that there is such a thing as objective truth.”

How to Enjoy “The Quintessence of Life”.

Is the author right? Is some art better than others? When it comes to creative output is there such a thing as ‘Objective Truth’?

Whilst I do not doubt that ‘discriminating judgments can be made in art’ I believe the notion of objective truth in art to be meaningless. Art cannot exist independently to human thought or feelings – without an emotional connection there is no art.

Furthermore, because ‘better’ is a relative term we surely need a criteria for comparison – better at what? If we were in the business of evaluating art then these are some criteria that we might use:

• ‘artist’s expression’;
• ‘artist’s technique’;
• ‘elicited emotional response’;
• ‘immunity to the test of time’;
• ‘investment potential’;
  
• ‘originality’.

There are many others and I am sure your own list would be more to your liking.

When it comes to the creative arts we all have a view on the ‘quality’ question and often it boils down to the following:

“I like what I like.  If you don’t like what I like because it seems somehow ‘low brow’ then you are either a snob or else you just don’t ‘get it’. If you don’t like what I like because it seems too ‘high brow’ then you are a moron.”

We can jazz this argument up with all sorts of justification but this is essentially it.

This type of thinking is dangerous as it can stop us being creative and prevent us becoming artists. We just become critics.

Why is this argument so common? Consider these two points:

1) We are trained to be critics – all through our education we are taught to evaluate, compare and contrast. We might need to unlearn this if we are to get anywhere interesting creatively.

2) We are programmed to belong and the best way to belong to one group is to collectively point at another (we like this and not that).

The seductive thing about the quality argument is that at the extremes it is obviously true: by most normal measures Shostakovich would be considered better than The Smurfs. But what about Gershwin, Duke Ellington, John Coltrane (add your own favourite here……)?

When the difference in quality is not clear cut we enter a debate and the discriminating judgments are more probably formed by subjective taste than objective truth.

Life is not that black and white, the joy comes in the spectrum of colours between the extremes.

I happen to get a stronger emotional response to some 80s pop than I do to some classical music and I doubt that Franck or Rachmaninoff could have communicated to me, or the average British teenager, quite as effectively as Robert Smith or Morrisey did at that time. This says nothing about the quality of the music, of course, but, against this one criterion at least, ‘popular music is on par with classical’

I suspect many people can relate to my emotional attachment to pop; as Noel Coward said, ‘extraordinary how potent cheap music is.’

Of course, if we have these emotional anchors to art we are perhaps less able to make ‘discriminating judgements’ about the quality of the art. We integrate the work into our world and it doesn’t become the focus, but a condiment. In the case of music, it becomes the soundtrack to the life we are living.

The context is important.

We would almost certainly have a different opinion of the quality of Rothko’s work if we were to sit quietly in the Rothko Chapel knowing something about the artist’s intentions than if we simply walked by a print of his work hanging on an accountant’s office wall.

‘Would you know world class if you saw it?’

The context is important and we perhaps need to know how to experience art if we are to fully appreciate it (and evaluate it, if we so desire). This is where the post I am referring to strikes a chord. It encourages us to learn how to appreciate this fine music – even providing links. In the author’s words:

“Fortunately, appreciating classical music is a skill that can be cultivated. By learning something about composition, we can more thoroughly understand and enjoy great music. All it requires is your attention, some imagination and a bit of abstract thinking.”

But beware: this is a lesson in becoming a critic, not in becoming an artist. Fine, if that is what you want, just be clear on your goals.

If you are not an artist then what are you? Take the quiz to find out what holds you back?

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On the Creative Steps programme we speak about the importance of ‘framing’. When we talk about framing we are speaking about using contexts and perspectives so that we can assign different meanings to certain events in our lives – so we can see them through ‘a different frame.’

We do this because the meaning we automatically assign to an event might not support our creative intentions. In cases like this it can be useful to change the frame so that we better serve ourselves.

Framing is a popular technique used by NLP practitioners and creativity coaches.

Viktor Frankl was a hugely influential psychiatrist who led what became known as The Third Viennese School of Psychotherapy. He survived three grim years at Auschwitz and other Nazi prisons only to gain freedom and learn that almost his entire family had been wiped out.

Frankl’s school of Psychotherapy made use of the technique of framing. In his own words, [his approach] “makes the concept of man into a whole…and focuses its attention upon mankind’s groping for a higher meaning in life.”

His ability to positively influence a person’s frame helped countless patients and his writing continues to help people today.

It is worth pondering how our creative lives would be improved if we could live as ‘activists’.

“The pessimist resembles a man who observes with fear and sadness that his wall calendar, from which he daily tears a sheet, grows thinner with each passing day. On the other hand, the person who attacks the problems of life actively [the activist] is like a man who removes each successive leaf from his calendar and files it neatly and carefully away with its predecessors, after first having jotted down a few diary notes on the back. He can reflect with pride and joy on all the richness set down in these notes, on all the life he has already lived to the full. What will it matter to him if he notices that he is growing old? Has he any reason to envy the young people whom he sees or wax nostalgic over his own lost youth? What reasons has he to envy a young person? For the possibilities that a young person has, the future that is in store for him? ‘No, thank you,’ he will think. ‘Instead of possibilities, I have realities in my past, not only the reality of work done and of love loved, but of suffering suffered.”

Viktor Frankl: Man’s Search for Meaning

It is good to remind ourselves that our work captures a moment in time, a record of our journey. It is worth remembering that our work, in itself, isn’t the destination on our journey.

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Why it is great to let resolutions fall by the wayside.

Mid-January is a great time to let those New Year’s resolutions fall by the wayside. You’ve tried; it didn’t work out, nevermind.

This might seem like failing – it isn’t, just call it feedback. It might be an opportunity to learn more about your values.

Do creative people need goals anyway?

When we are truly motivated by something it is likely to appeal in some way to our core values, so when our motivation falls away it is worth asking ‘would achieving this goal cause me to lose something that I currently value?’

This is one criterion for a well-defined goal, click here for the others.

It can be hard to make progress when our goals somehow conflict with our values. For this reason it is worth finding out a little more about your own values.

Getting clear on your values is also a great way to make sure you don’t end up another highly successful but essentially miserable person...you know the type of person I am talking about, they have got everything they said they wanted but found that it doesn’t actually cut it – it isn’t really the thing they valued.

There are lots of ways to get clearer on your values. Indeed, I have a few values exercises in the members’ area. However, if you want to do something quick and easy try this:

Step 1: Imagining you have walked in to a funeral. After a moment you look around the room and notice that it is full of your friends and family members and when you look into the open casket you realise that this is your funeral. This is your opportunity to find out what people are saying about you.

Step 2: Imagine talking to people that you actually know now (real people like close friends, relatives, colleagues) and try to imagine what they would say about you.

This exercise requires that you use specific comments that can be backed up by evidence – you need to collect the ‘because’ as well as the comment.

Imagine everything the people at your funeral would really say about you – and then think about how their words make you feel. (Even though this is a funeral imagine that the people are being honest and not just polite)

For example:

Your friend says you were special to them as you always had time for them. You feel good.

A colleague says you didn’t always follow through with your commitments and left work unfinished. This makes you feel slightly frustrated or embarrassed.

Step 3: In this exercise the comments that don’t make you feel good are the nuggets of gold. These are the ones that tell you in which areas of life you are not honouring your values.

For each statement that doesn’t make you feel good you need to ask yourself ‘what would I want this person to be saying about me?’

If you can answer this question you have probably identified one of your core values.

For example, you may prefer your colleagues to say that you always did what you said you would do. In this case, it might be that one of our values is accountability, or thoroughness. Play with it until you find an expression that makes you feel good. Then you will be getting closer to the value.

Turn the negatives into positives:

• Negative Statement: “He got it all too easy.”
• Positive Statement: “He made it look easy, although I could see the effort he put in.”
• Core Value: “Stoicism.”

And don’t be afraid to use your imagination when building a positive statement, add achievements you would like to hear people say about you as this might tell you the values you need to honour more:

• Negative Statement: “She struggled to make ends meet.”
• Positive Statement: “She worked on a tight budget for a while and then became a great success and died a very wealthy lady.”
• Core Value: “financial success is an important aspect to me.”

Talk with lots of people at the funeral; aim to find at last ten values . Ensure that these values cover all areas of your life, not just health, wealth and creativity. It is important to consider all of the major areas in your life.

Step 4: Write down your values.

How does it feel? Play with the words until you are comfortable. You will probably feel inspired and motivated by the words you have chosen.

If you made a New Year’s resolution can you see which value it honours? Can you identify any conflicts?

Remember: setting goals that conflict with your values can be de-motivational.

Use this exercise to help you move from values to motivation.

From motivation to values

Can you learn anything about your values by looking at what you find motivating?

I have selected three short motivational videos that appeal to different values. Which video inspires you most and what can you learn about your values?

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We are all looking for ways to silence the inner critic. Some of us never manage this and we abandon our creative journeys far too soon, committing ourselves to an almost certain future of drudgery, boredom and dissatisfaction.

Whether you are an amateur attempting to cross a creative project off your life list, a more seasoned artist, writer or musician faced with a creative block, or a creative entrepreneur attempting to bring your ideas to life, if you evaluate your ideas and creative output too early you might be prevented from finishing at all.

Allen Ginsberg, who often seems to act as the creative spokesmen for a generation of beat artists, advocated continuous ’stream of consciousness’ writing as a way to silence the critic:

“The parts that embarrass you the most are usually the most interesting poetically, are usually the most naked of all, the rawest, the goofiest, the strangest and most eccentric and at the same time, the most representative, most universal…That was something I learned from Kerouac, which was spontaneous writing could be embarrassing…The cure for that is to write things down which you know will not be published and you won’t show people. To write secretly….so you can actually be free to say anything you want…

It means abandoning being a poet, abandoning your careerism, abandoning even the idea of writing poetry, really abandoning, giving up as hopeless, – abandoning the possibility of really expressing yourself to the nations of the world. Abandoning the  idea of being a prophet with honour and dignity, and abandoning the glory of poetry and just settling down in the muck of your own mind…You really have to make a resolution just to write for yourself, but just writing what your self is saying.”

In her book The Artists Way, Julia Cameron recommends a practice of writing three (A4) pages of longhand stream of consciousness writing each morning before doing anything else. This writing is not intended to be creative output; it is not profound, or artistic or even coherent. It is probably just nonsense, but it gives you the opportunity to clear all the internal dialogue that is silencing the real you.

As Julia Cameron says, “It is impossible to write morning pages for any extended period of time without coming into contact with an unexpected inner power… the pages are a pathway to a strong sense of self. They are a trail we follow into our own interior…“

In the online creativity coaching course, Creative Steps, How to Coach yourself to Increasing Creativity, I encourage you to engage in daily, ’stream of consciousness’ writing – it is a great a way to silence the inner critic and has worked for countless creative people struggling to overcome creative block.

Is your inner critic dominating you?

Recently the course has been free in return for feedback.  This has not only given me the chance to refine the training course and evaluate what is working and what is not, but also I have got to work with interesting people from around the world, including an Australian musician, two American painters, an Indian entrepreneur and a number of other creative people from the UK.  This has been a stimulating and rewarding experience for me and for this reason I am extending the offer:

In return for feedback on the site you get free access to the site and 5 free, 45 minute coaching coaching sessions.

Contact me if this is of interest and I will forward a coaching intake pack that give more details of this service. I am particularly interested in hearing from writers or creative entrepreneurs who are looking to take their work to the next level.

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I received a response to my recent post What would you choose, money or Creative fulfillment? It simply read: ‘Other variant is possible also.’

Although this looks like a spam post to me, it is a valid point and has some lessons for coaching, especially if we are looking to coach ourselves to increasing creativity.

The question, as I posed it in the post, is a classic example of a bogus dilemma; that is a logical fallacy in which the range of choices is much greater than we are making out and we indulge in the drama of dilemma when none really exists. For example;

“You could be an actor or get yourself a real job and be happy.”

“If you are not the best you are just another wannabe.”

“Art is for the lazy.”

This type of thinking is discussed in Module 5 of the multimedia training course Creative Steps; How to coach yourself to increasing creativity. In the course we call it All or Nothing Thinking.

All or Nothing Thinking is a classic creative block and a major barrier to fulfilling our creative potential. It:

• Obscures choices
• Focuses our attention on the ultimate output and takes away our enthusiasm for practice.
• Overlooks the fact that a first draft may not be great but it might be the seed of something great.
• Makes the achievements of others appear overwhelming.
• Overlooks the vagaries of taste and opinion.

If your aim is to coach yourself to increasing creativity then you need to learn how to avoid All or Nothing Thinking. Here are some tips:

1) Be alert to all-or-nothing words like ‘always’, ‘never’, ‘everything’, and ‘nothing’, ‘either’, ‘or’.

2) When you hear yourself say these words (or when they are said to you) check to examine if more choices are available to you.

3) Try re-adjusting all or nothing phrases to more realistic words like ‘often’, ‘for now’ or ‘this time’.

For example:

“I’ll have to give up work or I’ll never finish writing my novel” can be adjusted to “I need to find a little more time somehow.”

4) Practice finding the middle ground. List all the options available to you outside of the dilemma presented. How can you find more time? How can you get some feedback on a recording

5) Think of more than one perspective on the issue. What would others think? What would a wise friend, a tutor or a guardian angel say about the issue?

An example:

For example: You might think, “I’m never going to be any good – I might as well give up.”

A wise friend might say, “Do you enjoy the doing?”

A guardian angel might that many people who were ultimately successful had failures at the beginning, too”.

Most important is to be alert to when you are being influenced by all or nothing thinking and know that there are often a myriad of choices available.

I’m going to sell my house and put all the equity on ‘red’, if I loose I can really start to suffer and then I can write my symphony, but if I win I’ll rid myself of worry and knuckle-down and write that symphony.

A Final Thought: If the post was random spam it shows that how ‘random association’ exercises can add sparks to dry tinder and get the ball rolling. Of course, this is a good example of a mixed metaphor……more on that in the members area, too.

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Take a look at this video from the TED conference.

Elizabeth Gilbert (author of Eat, Pray, Love) talks about some of the challenges of the creative life.

She suggests that instead of regarding an exceptionally creative individual as “being” a genius we should adopt a ’safer psychological construct’ and say that these people “have” a genius.

She suggests that each of us has a genius.

Is this really a radical idea?

In my opinion she appears to be using the same ’safe psychological construct’ as Julia Cameron did in The Artists Way (or books like ‘The Secret’, seem to do) – that is a re-framing at the spiritual dimension – that logical level above self.

What do you think of this approach? Could it work for you?

Tags: case studies, NLP
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Our lives are defined by our successes and failures,

but our energy is diminished by the weight of unfinished plans

It was Henry James that noted there was nothing as fatiguing as the hanging on of an uncompleted task. He knew the potential consequences of not achieving goals; the negative impact of our personal goals turning into interminable projects. For example, the proverbial unfinished manuscript, the type of which that surely sits in the drawer of countless writers, artists, intellectuals and other creative people.

Of course, there is nothing wrong in failing to achieve the results for which we are hoping – but beware! Our unfinished plans have weight and this accumulates over time to act like a millstone.

They say that nothing succeeds like success, and surely the corollary of this that nothing diminishes our energies like the disappointment of a de-railed plan and an unfulfilled goal.

But it is more than a simple accumulated loss of momentum that can destroy your creative dreams. Consider the consistent, unrelenting absorption in the lingering creative project that can occupy private thoughts for decades. The internal focus that this brings reduces our abilities to be present and our own internal critic chastises us for the exorbitant waste of time and effort.

In our denial we become embittered as we see people, perhaps less talented, receive the plaudits or lead the life that we had planned for ourselves. Rather than engaging and deriving pleasure from our creativity it becomes a burden and we become taunted by our inability to produce the quantity and quality of creative work that we easily imagine. No amount of positive thinking can overcome the reality of seeing your creative dreams unfulfilled.

Spend time with the elderly and their advice will generally be the same: the regrets of the things they don’t do weigh heavier than any regrets caused by doing.

But we are fooled. Obituaries are filled with stories of successes and achievements, but they never list the longed for things that remained unfulfilled – and we could perhaps learn most about our subject by knowing this.

“Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things you didn’t do than the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.”

Mark Twain

Despite all the evidence, we are deluded into believing that we have time. This leads us to believe that the manuscript can wait, but time passes. Perhaps when twenty years have passed and we are able to see that our creative dreams have not substantially progressed we will then know the weight of the uncompleted task. With luck it will not then be too late.

For some thoughts on achieving goals click here.

Tags: Creativity Coaching, Goals, Increasing Creativity
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Creative Steps and Creativity Coaching Concepts

Creative Steps is a nine-module, multi-media, creativity course for people who want to learn how to coach themselves to increasing creativity. It is for people who want to more consistently and effectively connect with their creative side.

Creative Steps is an online coaching course for seasoned professionals who want to take the quantity and quality of their creative work to the next level.

It is also a creativity guide for passionate amateurs who have always wanted to accomplish a creative dream and in the process become more fully self-expressed.

Each module is one step on the journey to creativity and each module presents the following:

downloadable tools and techniques to enhance creativity;
coaching material to help you overcome whatever is holding you back move towards increasing creativity;
case studies of famous people and enthusiastic amateurs;
exercises and tasks so you can flex your creative muscles and trial different ways of working;
tricks of the trade and lots of bonus material.

The course is practical; this is because we learn best through doing. You will be asked to take on new behaviours, try new ways of thinking and you will also be encouraged to work on a creative project of your own.

The Role of Coaching

Creativity Coaching was originally conceived to help people achieve more of what they want in their creative lives. It draws on many of the best concepts of life coaching, nlp and other fields of performance improvement to help people move towards increasing creativity.

This course helps you learn to be your own creative coach.

We assume you have no experience of coaching or the tools and techniques employed in this field. That is why everything you need is here.

For those new to coaching, the GROW model is a great starting point. It is one of the basic of coaching concepts introduced on creative steps. It is a framework that helps you unpack a problem and select the appropriate next step without getting into overwhelm. Use the structure whenever you feel a little directionless or when there is ‘a dip in the road’.

Goals - What do you want?
Reality - What’s happening now?
Options - What could you do?
What next? - What will you do?

You will learn more about the GROW model in the download area. You will also learn many other creativity coaching concepts.

If you feel you would benefit from creativity coaching then you might be interested to know that for a limited time my Information-Packed, Multi-Media Online Creativity Coaching Course is offered free of charge!

Unlimited Free Creativity Coaching

FIND OUT MORE

Tags: Coach Yourself, coaching concepts, Creativity Coaching, Increasing Creativity
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