The Creative Instinct

I drafted a posting a couple of days ago that simply didn’t feel right.

It was a bit ‘off the wall’ humour-wise, but I thought it had lots of good stuff in there. In fact I felt quite pleased with it, yet even so I hesitated to click the publish button. I asked my wife, Lynda, to cast her eyes over it. She said it was fine and pointed out all the parts she liked. She’s pretty good at picking up on problems, but still I hesitated. I gave it the benefit of a night’s sleep, and still I couldn’t put my finger on what was wrong, or indeed if anything was wrong at all. But I couldn’t bring myself to publish.

So I called my good friend and fellow coach Lindsey Benton to read it (she’s a fantastic coach for people in, or wanting to be in, the music industry, by the way). When she called me back later she agreed with Lynda about the stuff she liked… but…

… but… she saw problems with the structure that stopped the piece hanging together. I knew instantly she was right - and in retrospect it seems embarrassingly obvious. We talked about it and I came away with some good ideas on how to fix it.

When doubt isn’t negative

Now some interesting things happened here - especially for a life coach immersed in the ideas of positive thinking.

• I let my doubts stop me
• I put aside positive feedback from a trusted source

Aren’t these the classic actions of someone with low self esteem and an unhealthy bag full of self limiting beliefs about themselves?

Well, yes they could be. In this case though I think I managed to recognise that no matter how vague, my doubts were valid - and I’m so pleased that I did listen to them.

There are times to squish your doubts and times to listen carefully and figure out what they’re telling you. Recognising the difference between the two is a trick worth knowing. For me I think it’s to do with understanding which part of me is casting the doubt.

If it’s that darker voice of weakness and negativity it deserves my unreserved inattention. If on the other hand it’s a voice that seems to be offering positive critique rather than plain old negative criticism, then it makes sense to listen carefully. I’ll admit it’s not always easy to tell which is which, and I know for sure I get it wrong sometimes - but this time I made the right call.

Honing your awareness of when a critical voice is negative and when it’s got a genuine point is one of the keys to making good judgements, and well worth the effort.

All I need to do now is fix that draft and get it out to you. As I said, it is a little off the wall. You’ll know which one it is by the fish fingers.

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Other relevant postings:

Be Careful What You Think - it might just come true!
Perfectionism - a Creative and Artistic Straight-Jacket - and How to Escape it