I’m not an expert so I want to recommend a great book about being more creative called, The Path of Least Resistance, by Robert Fritz.  Here are three suggestions that Fritz gives:

1.  Start by creating the vision or picture of what you want.  This should come about as much from dreaming as from thinking.  Don’t base your vision on something you’ve already created because that will limit your creative abilities.  How could you know what you’re able to build unless your vision is almost a dream?  And if you don’t create 100% of what you want, at least you’ve come close.

2.  Then, you honestly analyze where you are now.  Part of being creative is to measure the gap between your vision and your present situation.  I’ve found this to be tough.  It’s difficult to be objective and honest about myself.  Sometimes, it even hurts and I feel like I’m about as creative as a cockroach.

The value of this step is that it leads to a plan for how you can get from where you are now to reach and build your vision.  You can build the steps (even small ones) that you take.  Can these steps change?  Of course and they probably will as you get closer to your vision and work-out the mistakes and wrong turns.

The other valuable part of this process creates a tension: you see the gap between where you are and what you want.  For me, I feel this as frustration, uneasiness, tension, or even fear!  Fear that I’ll fail miserably and all my family and neighbors will be anxious to laugh at me.  But Fritz says we can use this productively.

3.  Use the tension to motivate yourself to take each step forward toward your creative goal.  Recognize the unpleasant feelings and instead of trying to eliminate them, embrace and use them.

My experience has been that when I grab onto the tension, it energizes me.  As I slog through the first, sloppy steps suddenly something magical happens—the process become so pleasant the words almost write themselves.  It doesn’t always last long, but when I’m “in the zone” I feel as if all the writing gods are behind me and I’m no longer a mere cockroach.

Have you ever had this experience with anything you worked at?  How did it go?

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1.  Most of us are “problem solvers.”  In our personal life, family, and jobs we must constantly solve problems.  People who are good at solving complex problems are rewarded and can make lots of money.  That’s great, but Fritz reminds us that this is never ending—we always have more problems on Monday morning.  And it’s essentially a negative process.  He means that our efforts are always to “get rid of something”—rather than building something new.

2.  To be creative means to put problems aside and build something.  In my case, that means writing a book.  But it can also mean building a sales campaign, designing a program, creating a healthy life style, or creating healthy relationships.  Fritz warns that most of us spend too much time on problem solving and not enough on building what we really want.  Instead of getting up in the morning and thinking of all the problems we need to fix, he recommends that we should focus on what we want to build.  Sounds good, huh?

3.  How can we focus on being more creative?  Fritz insists we all have creative parts to us, but we don’t realize what he have.  Easy for him to say.  Here’s what happens to me:  I get the germ of an idea for a new story, I’m excited about writing it, and then I have to sit at my computer and actually start the story . . . like, with words!  Aarrgh!

Everything stops dead.  I feel tension rising in me the longer I sit without any words coming out.  I even hope that global warming speeds up so it gets too hot for me to sit there—and I’ll escape the difficult job of writing the story.

Being creative is not always easy.  But I can tell you that if I sit at the computer long enough something wonderful happens.  From somewhere (maybe the creative gods feel sorry for me!) the ideas start flowing.  For a period of time, being creative is not only easy it’s also exciting and satisfying.  I’m actually flying with Spiderman!

What are the steps you should take to get to this point?  How do you deal with the tension all of us feel when trying to be creative?  I’ll answer these in the next post.  In the meantime, tell me how you’ve been creative.  What are you building in your life and how do you do it?

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