What do I mean by Square One?

Well, not necessarily back to the beginning – whatever that is – but back to the known, the familiar, the place you used to be accepted and known. Back to your so-called Comfort Zone.

Here’s an example from my own work and life to illustrate the point.

I’ve been in a rather huge transition for the last 4 months stemming from the separation from my wife. This is no small change. It has been a time of intense, deep, deeply troubling, emotional upheaval. I have been buffeted and battered by an incredible array of emotions; many painful and a few not.

One of the biggest challenges of this transition is a deep, troubling loss of confidence in myself and my abilities. The raw emotions that I feel leave me feeling so vulnerable, so exposed, that I find it difficult, if not impossible, to promote and market myself.

If you’ve recently been fired, I’m betting you feel much the same: tender, raw, exposed, and afraid. And, perhaps like me you yearn to go back to what was.

I’m not talking here about those of you (and you know who you are) who are trapped in jobs/work/careers that are killing you not so softly; who yearn to leave but are trapped.

I’m talking about those of you, who like me, have actually quit a job or contract. But, who now, feeling the pain of transition, want to flee back to those former jobs, those seeming sanctuaries.

When we feel vulnerable and emotionally needy it’s natural to seek the comfort of the familiar. When it feels as if you are raw and bleeding from every pore the last thing you want to do is expose yourself to possible abuse and rejection.

So, the temptation is to go back to that place where everybody knows your name. To the seeming comfort of people who know you and your skills. To a place where you don’t have to prove yourself.

The problem is you can’t. And, maybe you shouldn’t try.

Take my case for example (please). I had a great contract position for 4 years and make great money. I left because the environment was becoming toxic – and the work boring. Yet, just this morning a thought entered my mind, “maybe I should go back.” Immediately, another part of me said, “Are you nuts?”

Why would part of me think about going back to a toxic situation?

Why? The siren song of the familiar. The misplaced – perhaps insane – belief that somehow it would be easier, less painful. There is some seeming comfort in the notion that these people know me, that not having to prove myself to them somehow outweighs the eventual pain and destruction that would surely follow from exposure to their toxic behavior.

And, yet each time I hear that siren call of what was, I need to give myself a metaphorical slap upside the head, and let go of that crazy notion that I can return to Square One.

I could … but only at great risk.

What about you?

© 2010 Lyle T. Lachmuth, All Rights Reserved

Here’s a great way to kick start the creative process (Thanks to Dara the fearless new president of CARWA for this idea!)

1. Grab a random book from your library. You DO have a library don’t you?

2. Turn to a random page.

3. Pick a paragraph, again, randomly.

4. Write down the first 7 words of the first sentence of that paragraph.

5. Use those 7 words as a “writing prompt”. That is, these 7 words will be beginning of paragraph.

6. Set a timer for 5 minutes!

7. Start writing and don’t STOP until the timer goes. Just write your buns off.

8. Celebrate your achievement! Chocolate is always good.

Now, review what you’ve written to see how you can weave it into your novel or turn it into  an article or blog post.

You’ll be pleasantly surprised at just how creative and productive you can be when you’re under (mild) pressure.

Now, GO DO IT!

However, being the friendly guy that I am, I’m happy if you want to Link up with me … even if I don’t really know you. I’m all about relationships. So, who knows,  we could maybe just learn something from each other.

But, please if you are going to ask me to “Join my network on LinkedIn” make it easy for me to decide if I want you to be part of my network. After all, you just might be a crazed stalker!

So, when you send a request to Link up on LinkedIn request to me, or, for that matter to anyone else, and the recipient of the LinkedIn request doesn’t know you from Adam or Eve, please do the following…

Tell us where you know me from, or why you want to Link with me, or, a wee bit about who you are (so I don’t have to go a read your bloomin’ profile to figure out who the heck you are). This is particularly true if you have a common name, and, trust me, your name is probably way more common than you think it is!

By the way, this same advice applies to Facebook. I’m not all that famous, yet, so when I get a Friend request from some unknown person, first thing I do is check you out! Particularly, if you’ve sent me a generic Friend request. Again, if I don’t know you, tell me why you want to friend me, where you know me from, etc. Trust me … even if you are blonde, busty, and bodacious I won’t accept your friendship unless I see some reason for having you in my circle of ‘friends’.

I’m even pickier with Twitter followers. Of course, that just might have something to do with all the Twitter spammers and scammers. I don’t auto accept and I don’t auto follow! I click through and vet every Twitter follower. And, I can’t tell you how many times that I’ve received an “account suspended for suspicious activity” message, even within an hour of receiving a follow notification. And, when I check out your creds I’ll block you if I don’t like the looks of you: you’re selling multi-level marketing opportunities, or you want me to check out your sexy pictures at some shortened/obscure URL. 

I’m Canadian so that means I’m nice (or at least that’s the myth we propagate)   so please do REMEMBER that Social Media is a like a bit like the dating scene. I want to know who you are BEFORE we get intimate!

Transitions do that to me. Well, truthfully, they do it to everyone. It’s just that some of us seem to be more overtly bothered and bewildered by transition. It’s probably why I was drawn to do my Masters degree in the area of Change Management.

But, I digress.

I’ve been feeling very stuck about where the heck I want to go with my career and life. There are many good reasons for the stuckness … and lot’s of great excuses too.

As a friend said to me the other day, “the great thing about misery is it’s so familiar!”

So, I’ve been pondering “how do I figure out what I want?”

I’m seem to be really unclear about that. So, on my morning walk today I decided to ask myself, “What DON’T I want?”

Now, that, I’m very clear about.

At least blacking out the areas of my life map where I don’t want to travel; don’t want to live; is progress.

I’m still not totally clear on what I DO want. But, knowing what I don’t want IS important.

Next time you have trouble getting clear about what you want and can’t … get clear about what you don’t want.

One of these is the ability to hyperfocus:

“it may also be accurately described as an exceptionally intense capacity to “zone in” on a specific thing, blocking out potential distractions at a greater level than is common for most people.”

As I noted in a previous post, the ADD-like brain of the Artistic-type is wont to wander, and wonder; to diverge, to look and be scattered.

However, artists (and non-artists) whether they actually have ADD, or simply look ADD-like, can cultivate the gift of hyperfocus.

According to Ratey, hyperfocus, comes ‘naturally’ to those with “shadow’ ADD.

So, what about those of us who only look like we have ADD?

Can we use  the power of hyperfocus?

I say, “Why not try?”

Here’s how.

1. Make a commitment to hyperfocus.
2. Set a time limit … 10 minutes or less seems like a good idea.
3. Pick a focus topic or task.
4. Set a timer … a simple kitchen timer can do the trick.
5. GO!
6. As distractions come up — and they bloody will — gently push them aside. Gentleness works better than trying to bully them … Yoga practice is teaching me that.
7. Keep going. Keep working. Keep focused.
8. When the time limit arrives … wrap up the last few threads of the task.
9. Shut ‘er down.
10. CELEBRATE!

That’s the process in 10 simple steps.

Give it  a go!

And, do let me know how it works for you.

Like all great epiphanies it derives from the ‘compost heap’ of  my brain.

I forget which of my colleagues used that term, ‘composting’, to refer to the organic combining of ideas, thoughts, stimuli, data, and information that goes on in the brain — but I love it.

Anyway, lest I diverge too far … here’s the notion.

What can I/you do in 10 minutes, or less, to move a tangible, concrete step closer to my/our vision?

My application of this idea today, is to write this blog post in 10 minutes or less.

Can it be done?

Of course it can. If for example I refrain from my usual efforts to find link urls for references in the the blog. Or, even, god forbid, try to use any references. Pish tosh!

The idea is simple.

Pick a task that takes 10 minutes or less.

Then do it!

Voila!

You’ve made freaking progress. Maybe only nano-progress but progress nonetheless.

Only 3 minutes left. Great, maybe time enough to share the source of my inspiration.

It comes from ‘baby sitting’ my grandson.

I knew from countless conversations with “Writing Mothers” that they often get articles, even whole books, written in 10 minute chunks.

This really hit home for me when I recently cared for my grandson. I couldn’t get a bloody thing done! I’d barely sit down when he wanted my attention about something.

I’ve been mulling, i.e. idea composting, the experience for weeks. How the hell do mom writers do it? Well, what they told me was they ‘chunk it’. They just grit their teeth, plug their ears, and bloody do it!

Then today it hit me!

Why don’t I give it a try. Why don’t I see if I can create something useful. A complete piece of writing … in 10 minutes.

THIS is the result.

What do you think?

(Spell checked and edited version posted 1 hour later

“Why”, I ask, “do you think that?”

Here’s a few of the laments I’ve heard:

I’ve started 7 projects and  haven’t finished 1.

I can’t sleep because my head is buzzing with ideas.

My wife/husband/partner accuses me of being a flake/dilettante/artiste.

I check my Facebook/Twitter feed every 5 minutes.

I can’t resist looking at my iPhone every 2 minutes.

I have 39 Firefox tabs open at once.

I start to read a blog post, then see another one, click on it, see something else, and before I know it hours have passed.

Sound familiar?

Sure enough these “symptoms” sound kinda like Attention Deficit Disorder.

But, before you go running off and down a pill or six, take a moment to listen to this.

I’ve coached hundreds of Artistic type over the last 22 years. And, like me, I’ve noticed that they do have a pronounced tendency to look ADD-like.

But, the “problem” isn’t ADD. It’s the way Artistic brains are wired.

Years ago, a woman in my Mastermind group, described her brain as being like a “tangled ball of string”. My partner shuddered at the notion. I, on the other hand, was intrigued.

I knew this woman was likely the same personality type as me. So, I began to pay more attention to the attentional-challenges she and I had. And, I began to think about how my brain was constructed.

Finally, I came to the conclusion that my brain was like a huge network, kind of like a spider web. So that everything that touched any part of the ‘net’ set off vibrations in every other part. It was as if everything was connected to, or associated with everything else.

Then I read Kay Redfield Jamison’s soul searching memoir, “An Unquiet Mind: A Memoir of Moods and Madness.” In it she used the lovely term dendritic to describe the way in which her brain was wired. It made so much sense to me and was such an apt description of the way so many of my artistic clients brains seemed to work.

Dendrites are, of course, the connectors of the brain. I believe that artistic-types have looser connections or perhaps more easily stimulated connections in their brains. And, perhaps a better or stronger connection to their Right Brain.

So, what happens in the Artistic brain?

First, let me say, that 1 of the reasons for our apparent inability to focus, to stay attentive to 1 thing, is because we are wired to notice, to be stimulated by almost everything in our ‘field of view’. I think of it as swimming in a river of data. Where other types may not even know there is a river, we wallow, frolic in, and are stimulated by ideas/data/information.

And, each discrete bit of data pings the neural net of our braid and our dendritic brain thrums and hums. And, quite frankly, gets turned on! Information is sexy.

Little wonder then that it’s hard to stay attuned to 1 thing.

But, we can!

When we put our minds to it. Every artistic type I’ve worked with can get things done. Can focus, in fact, can hyper focus.

It’s just that given our druthers we’ve rather gorge ourselves on all those lovely ideas.

So, next time you think  you have ADD, think again.

Maybe you’re just wired differently.

And, just maybe, that’s a damn good thing!

The Unsticking™ Newsletter for authors, writers, and other creatives who want to make a great living doing what they love.

3 WAYS TO NOURISH YOUR INNER ARTIST

What are you doing to nourish and nurture your Inner Artist?

I ask this question because it is one that I am struggling with myself; a question that I write about, almost every day. It’s also at the fore front of my mind because I see so many of my clients and colleagues struggling with the same challenge.

As artists, whatever form our ‘art’ takes, our work is about expressing, about out-putting, about creating something out of nothing. We take ideas, information, and inspirations and turn them into novels, paintings, poems, songs, events, installations, photographs, operas, sculptures, movies, et al.
Creating is bloody hard work. And, as energizing and fulfilling as it is, it also depletes us. For creativity flows from us, out of us.

So, what are you doing to nourish your Inner Artist?

Here are 3 things I am doing (not as often perhaps as I ought to):

1. Hanging out with other artists

Growing up, my JW step-mother repeatedly told me, “bad associations spoil useful habits”. I’ve transformed that counsel into, “spending time with other creative types will nurture my Inner Artist”. Recently I decided to become a member of the Calgary Chapter of the Romance Writers of America. And, I’ve rebooted my membership in a couple of online writing communities on Yahoo and Facebook.

1. Spending time alone, preferably in nature

Don’t spend too much time with others, even with other artists. Why? Because creativity flows from our connection with God and that connection is best nurtured by being alone.

Several years ago I first noticed that I often felt better when I was camping in the mountains. So, now I nourish my Inner Artist by going for a daily walk in one of the city’s many parks and I try to escape to the mountains at least once a month.

1. Reading, reading, reading.

I admit it, I’m an information addict and self professed Bookaholic. My rationale is that to generate creative ideas you have to input data. So, I consume copious amounts of information from an eclectic plethora of sources: books, blogs, newsletters, and magazines.

What about you? What information and ideas do you feed your Inner Artist? Do they fertilize your mind or poison it? Do they create new connections and stir possibilities or do they stifle innovation? Do you read outside your field of specialty or do you stick inside the box?

Online I consume frequent doses of TED Talks and YouTube inspirational videos. What are you watching? How does it nourish you? Does it expand your thinking and creativity or limit it? Is it mindless viewing or mindful?

THANKS TO ALEX BROWN

A special BIG THANK YOU to my former client Alex Brown, The Project Management Guru with a Heart, for the lengthy, provocative chat about the impact of environment on the tender Artistic soul. That dendritic discussion energized and inspired this newsletter – thanks dude!

SOCIALIZE WITH ME

If reading this newsletter once a month doesn’t provide all the ideas and information you need to nourish your Inner Artist, that please do tune in for more of my musings and meanderings at:

My Official Blog The Unsticking Coach

Friend me on Facebook

Link we me on LinkedIn

Tweet along with me at Twitter

Your opinions, ideas, suggestions, questions, and feedback are important to me. Please let me know what you think, what you’d like to see in future articles, or tell me what you don’t agree with.

Contact me here.

Until next time,

Lyle Lachmuth MS (Organization Development)

THE Unsticking^™ Coach

“Your Career, Your Life, YOUR Way!“^™

ABOUT THIS NEWSLETTER

CAVEAT: CREATIVE CAREERS UNLEASHED, its author and publisher, are not engaged in providing therapy or financial advice. This newsletter is provided for informational purposes only.

CREATIVE CAREERS UNLEASHED may be reproduced and distributed in its entirety only, including copyright, legal, and contact information and only with live links intact.

Copyright 2010 The Unsticking™ Coach and Lyle T. Lachmuth, All Rights Reserved

Imagine being a ‘piano prodigy’. Now, imagine what would happen to your life if your right hand suddenly seized up and you could no longer play.

What then?

Yet, that is what happened to Leon Fleisher in 1964. This story in the Calgary Herald, March 18, 2010 recounts how the course of his live was inexorably changed by, what was years later, diagnosed as a ‘focal dystonia’.

After 2 years of a “deep funk”, Fleisher one day woke to the realization that he was “more than a 2 handed pianist”.

With that realization, his whole creative approach changed, Fleisher says,

“I threw myself into teaching, I began to investigate the left hand (piano) literature, and I started conducting.”

And, last week, at the age of 82, he appeared in Calgary where he performsed Mozart’s Concerto for Two Pianos in F Major (K. 242) and also conducted the Calgary Philharmonic.

What most intrigued me about this story is that a very, very similar thing happened to me.

Over the course of several years, from 1976 to 1978, my right hand began to seize up. Eventually it became so claw-like that I could no longer write. One day, in utter frustration, I picked up a pen and began to write … with my left hand.

I was happily surprised that not only could I write but the writing flowed easily, freely, and best of all was readable! I was delighted to be able to be able to resume writing reports and hand printing Fortran programs onto coding sheets which were passed on to key punch operators.

I had little inkling then that shift of handedness would we lead to such a Sinister outcome.

Why Sinister? Well, sinister is simply the Latin word for Left. While Dexter, my favorite serial killer, is Latin for Right. So, you ask, what was the Sinister outcome for me.

What I didn’t realize in 1978 was that the switch to using my left hand would lead to entire shift in the course and direction of my career. Up until then I had always envisioned climbing the rungs of the professional IT ladder until I reached the pinnacle: Systems Advisor.

Yet, 1 morning in 1980 I quite literally woke with this thought in my head, “I don’t want to be a systems professional any more!”

In fact, over the preceding 2 years I had already begun moving toward my eventual, largely unconscious, goal – “Teacher”. In Summer 1978, I happily assumed the mantle of lead instructor/facilitator of the department’s newest program, “Structured Systems Analysis”.

But, that fateful day in 1980 my shift in career focus suddenly became conscious: I wanted to shift from the so-called Hard Sciences to the so-called Soft Sciences. A shift from dealing with technology, data, and systems to people, information, and systems.

What intrigues me about Fleisher’s story is that shifted from the role of ‘technician’ to the role of teacher and conductor. My parallel shift was also to that of teacher and facilitator.

I became intrigued by a ‘people systems’ project being carried out in our department with the goal of fostering employment equity for the large numbers of women entering our department. So, I asked the woman leading the OD intervention how I might “get your job?”

I am ever grateful that Tamara Weir-Bryan was kind enough to explain how I might go about steering my career in a bold new direction.

However, little did Tammy and I realize that doing so would lead me to a life crisis of epic proportions and a brutal departure from the womb of the corporation.

To be confinued…

Copyright 2010 Lyle T. Lachmuth, All Rights Reserved

I concur.

Her solution: Empty the brain by writing down ALL those ideas flooding through your head.

Then sort them by: HELL YES! HELL NO! Maybe!

I’m doing mine.

DO Yours.