Being an artist of your own life

Yet, there is a part of everyone’s intelligence that can see beyond the horizon. I call it being a “Change Artist”. It is the part of the human psyche that can sense into possibilities before they become manifest. Pablo Picasso once said “Everyone is born an artist, the trick is to recapture that artist as an adult.” When I once asked a group of kindergarten students to raise their hand if they considered themselves an artist, all hands went up. When I asked that same question of a group of adults instead, what do you think happened?
Only about 25% put their hands up. Somehow the older people get the less they seem to frame themselves in terms of artistry. Perhaps it’s how you define artistry. How I like to frame artistry is that it is not about doing something such as drawing, playing music, or writing, it’s about who you are being. For example, you can play music very un-artistically, whereas you could plan your busy day very artistically. To be artistic in conducting your life is to sense into the natural creative flow of life and to get in synch with it, using that energetic flow to manifest just the right outcome in just the right way. It’s an intelligence beyond what we typically call IQ. Let’s call it AQ….your Artistic Quotient.

Symptoms that you may be in The Winter of Change

Using your AQ during The Winter of Change can be very beneficial because it’s usually the time in your life when your outward creative abilities are lying fallow and replenishing themselves. When you feel less outwardly creative, it’s time to tap into a more inward creativity. Few people in our goal oriented culture effectively model this inward creativity and so it’s not as well practiced. The tips below may help you tap into exactly what you need to move forward. Symptoms that you are in a replenishing phase may be:

• Feeling low energy and unmotivated
• Confusion and having little clarity about what’s next
• Grieving the old identity that has fallen away

What’s going on is that the old identity that was tied up with your previous life is breaking down and dying. It’s like what happens in your garden when the cold rain and snow set in. The remains of the last harvest start to disintegrate and the soil begins to compost to get ready for Spring. Humans have an aversion to death and dying, so it’s natural to feel uncomfortable during this phase. But ironically the more you resist it the longer it seems to take. Also, if you try to skip this step, you may find you miss out on the next harvest of your life, or at least miss out on having the best possible harvest. Here are some tips to make it through the Winter with more ease and grace allowing you to get to Spring faster while also replenishing yourself more fully for what’s next:

1. Focus on the breaking down process: If you find yourself wanting to escape the discomfort of the breaking down process, try giving yourself just 10 minutes of being with it. Often people avoid going into those sensations because they are afraid they may end up being consumed by the feelings of loss. However, feelings are like clouds. They come and they go. The focus of your attention on them ironically causes them to evaporate. Just sit quietly in a private place and breathe into the areas of discomfort and see what happens. You may be surprised about how much relief this can bring. If you don’t allow yourself to grieve the old and let go, then you cannot make way for what is next.

2. Time out: People are far more validated in our culture when they are in the Spring and Summer of change than during the Autumn or Winter phases, yet you can’t have one without the other. Giving yourself permission to be less active, less productive, to just rest and muse, will actually make the Winter phase easier and quicker. Different types of “time out” activities work for different people. It may be short, regular activities like walks in nature or meditating, or spending more time doing something you love like a hobbies or a sport. Or it could be a longer activity like a vacation or focusing for a few weeks on your gardening or writing. Be mindful however of doing activities that bring rejuvenation rather than just distraction, for example the difference between watching a soul stirring movie, and watching 10 episodes of The Simpsons.

3. Explore new options: Give your imagination time to explore that is beyond the horizon. Gurdjieff, a Russian thought leader (1866-1949) once suggested that within each person is a committee of voices. Sometimes that committee is in harmony, sometimes not. If you have spent 20 years being a parent some members of your committee may have had to be overruled. For example, if you are recently an “empty nester” chances are those more silent committee members are now voicing their interests. Exploring new options means focusing your attention on areas of your life that may have been ignoring, or welcoming in new inspirations or new committee members who have something valuable to contribute to your next phase of life.

If you would like a process to help you explore new options feel free to check out The Art of Reinvention. It is a 19-page white paper that allows you to explore the next phase of your life from various angles. It only takes about an hour to complete and can be surprisingly rejuvenating, insightful and can help you more quickly usher in the Spring.

I would love to continue this conversation with you. Feel free to post comments, insights, or questions below.

Thank you and best of luck with your reinvention!
In Friendship
Carla

- David Whyte, poet

People are reinventing themselves at a rate never before seen in history

Did you know that, according to the U.S. Department of Labour, many of the most in demand careers today didn’t even exist 6 years ago? Did you also know that the average person changes their role within an organization at least 4 times? People also change their career at least 6 times, their homes at least 12 times and their long term relationships at least 3 times in a lifetime.

In short, people are reinventing themselves at a rate never before seen in history–and it is growing exponentially. As the world changes, the way you belong to the world keeps changing, too. Yet, few of us have had a role model for reinventing ourselves over and over again. Just a generation or two ago people tended to stay in the same job, career, home, and relationship their entire life.

As a result, there exists a huge proportion of people perpetually in transition and entirely challenged about how to deal with it. Transitions are especially uncomfortable when you are between two worlds. You can’t go back to the old, but you haven’t yet found your way with the new. It’s like the winter of change when the old harvest is now gone and the new one needs time before it can manifest.

The winter of change can feel barren and cold

In this stage you can feel lost, lethargic; maybe not even wanting to get out of bed in the morning. Some people even feel like they no longer connect to a meaning for their life, and many things they used to enjoy are now feeling pointless. These are normal experiences during the winter season of your creative life. While it may be summer outside, it can feel like winter inside. Many people think that there is something wrong with them during this phase. Yet it is actually a very important phase of the reinvention process in a person’s life and to ignore it or to anaesthetize it can mean that you miss out on the next harvesting of your life journey.

There are cycles in everyone’s life when it feels barren, like nothing is happening, like the great harvest you experienced before in your life will never happen again. During this state of mind a subterranean part of your psyche is replenishing itself and getting you ready for what’s next. This is the time in your cycle of growth when you need the most support and the time you’re least likely to ask for it.

Carl Jung great thought-leader in the field of psychology, once said: “Depression is often the empty stillness which precedes creative work.” Once you realize this it can create a sense of safety to just be okay with the barrenness of this winter of change in your life. In fact, for some people this reframe alone can make it sometimes a fascinating rather than only an uncomfortable process.

People often enter the winter of change after they have achieved their goal

This state of mind can happen soon after you retire, even if you had been looking forward to your retirement for years. It can happen after your children leave home, even if you were looking forward to finally freeing up your energy from all those years of parenting. Or even more surprisingly after a great success in your life. If you had been working for years to achieve a certain level of career success and then you finally achieve it, there can be an odd sense of purposelessness when it’s over that can usher you into a winter of your creative cycle.

This happened for me about 14 years ago after I’d spent 5 years building my career as an inspirational speaker. I had achieved my dream and I was speaking at huge sales rallies across the continent. I was being flown around and put up in five-star hotels. After the last in a series of presentations had completed I remember going back to my hotel room and instead of feeling elated I felt strangely depressed. I felt as if whatever I was seeking all those years was not worth it or that somehow this dream I was chasing wasn’t giving me what I was actually looking for.

This was the beginning of two years of a barren winter in my life in which I no longer wanted to do this career, and didn’t have the motivation or interest to create anything new. It was a frightening time for me because I knew nothing about this natural time of barrenness that people experience cyclically in their lives. I was afraid that I would stay in this state forever. It took a toll on my health, my relationships and of course my income. The only thing I seemed interested in doing was journaling and walking in nature which in retrospect was exactly what I needed to be doing. I was discovering a new purpose that wanted to be born into my life.

What took so long for me to get through this process was that I didn’t want to let go of the old identity because it was familiar, I knew how to make it work and I was  attached to the social approval I received for this kind of work, not to mention the income and sense of security that provided. Yet, trying to hold on was actually creating more problems in my life.

When I finally let go of my old identity and let myself go into the dark and the unknown I started to discover amazing things, parts of myself that wanted expression. The truth was that I didn’t need to change what I was doing but how I was doing it. Through this 2 years I created a process that I now share with people so they don’t have to go through two years of being lost, confused and resistant to this winter of change. I have been working with people and perfecting the system ever since.

The Art of Reinvention process for getting through to Spring

The Art of Reinvention process helps you move through this period of time more quickly, with ease and grace, and it helps you reframe this process so that you suffer less and enjoy it for what it is. A process like this can also help you avoid the pitfalls that often happen during the winter of change – for example addictive behaviors, creating drama, relationship breakdowns, health issues, financial issues.

This process is useful for anyone who is in transition, having left behind:

• a job or career (e.g. being a supervisor or running a business)
• a relationship  (e.g. losing a friend, or going through a divorce)
• a role (e.g. being a parent, or being a volunteer)
• an identity (e.g. being single, being in your 40s)

And it’s especially helpful if you haven’t gotten clear about what is next, or more importantly how you want do what’s next in your life. Check out The Art of Reinvention process here. It is an easy-to-use, step-by-step process to help you explore the themes of the next chapter of your life.

And just remember, it takes courage to release the familiar and seemingly secure, to embrace the new. But there is no real security in what is no longer meaningful for you. There is actually more security in taking an adventure into the new, because in movement there is life and vitality again.

The metaphor of the growing cycle, is a useful one for change leaders. Creating fertile soil is your first task towards ensuring the seed of your idea can thrive. Have you broken down the old fears, learned from them, and therefore created a rich and “alive” environment that invites excitement?

Why people paid so much for tickets for the Winter Olympics

Some people paid as much at $750 to $1500 per ticket to see an event at the Olympic Winter Games here in Vancouver this week. When I surveyed these ticket buyers as to why they would spend so much on a two-hour experience I received the same general answer: “It’s so alive and exciting, and those kind of experiences are rare in life.”

An innovative way to bring awareness to your cause

Here’s another example. An innovative organization called Imagine 1 Day was seeking to gain attention for their cause: providing primary education for all children in Ethiopia. They organized a flash mob dance during the Winter Olympics games in downtown Vancouver. The idea was to teach a choreographed routine to a group of people who would then spontaneously break into that dance in a public area — an idea no doubt inspired by the Improv Everywhere events.

They invited people in their network and staged several rehearsals to teach a dance routine to the hit song, Dancing in the Street. They expected about 200-300 people to show up. In the end, over 3000 people learned the dance. The crowd took up an entire city block in Vancouver. Ten times more people than they ever expected to attend were there, and all of those people got to hear about their cause. Not only that but another thousand watched from the sidelines. Add to that all the videographers who posted it on YouTube. Even CNN reported on it. Why would that many people spent so much of their precious time and energy to learn a rather complicated routine and then drag themselves out on a cold and rainy day to dance it? I was one of the participants along with many of my friends. The answer seemed unanimous. Because it was exciting to be part of a huge group of people harmonizing our energies together doing something fun — all for a great cause. In short, it made us all feel more alive.

Here’s a short clip of the event:

Regardless of your opinion about an organization’s goals, Olympics Games or educating children in Ethiopia, creating an atmosphere of aliveness invariably attracts people and opens minds.

Trying to plant your seed of change in unbalanced soil

In the last blog post we talked about one of the main mistakes change leaders make–which is trying to plant the seed of change in unbalanced soil. When there is an over focus on protection at the expense of growth ideas can’t get traction. People have a deep need to feel alive, to grow and thrive. They also have a core need to feel safe and protected. The problem comes when those two needs get out of balance. The tendency in many organizations especially after an economic downturn, is for there to be an over focus on protection which tends to kill off growth and aliveness. Many organizations are not open to change because there is a long standing habit of operating mainly from a fear-based need to simply survive. This survival mindset may have some basis in reality but more often it is simply a bad habit of catastrophic thinking. As a change leader you may need to address this issue before people will be open to your idea for positive change. Organizations and individuals get stuck in protection mode due to perceptions. No change can occur unless you help stakeholders perceive the situation in a more growth-oriented way. This usually cannot be done with logic alone as fear is an instinctual emotion and therefore you will need a more “alive” approach.

Case study – focusing on growth and aliveness to change perception

For example, a privately-owned software company had a culture clash between the sales force and the product development and tech support teams. The owner felt that the majority of resources and decision-making power should lie in the hands of the sales force because they drove revenue. As a result, the sales team decided on timelines and deliverables without consulting the other teams.

Naturally, the stress levels and subsequent resentment within the development team grew. When the development team presented their concerns to the owner he simply asked them to “think more positively” — and you can imagine the response to that. The owner had tunnel vision about the structure and system needed for his company to survive. The previous two years had been a tough. Cash flow suffered due to an economic downturn and they had barely avoided bankruptcy. As a result all he could focus on was cash flow, and the sales force meant cash flow. Now that sales were flowing they were taking every contract without communicating with each other before signing the deal.

Meanwhile the product developers and tech support team suffered. Several of their best people quit. Back room gossip escalated. Interpersonal conflict grew. When the owner heard that clients were leaving because of the bad “vibe” there, he hired an HR person to sort things out. She tried everything from disciplining the gossipers to sending them off for motivational training to help them “get over their resistance to change”. Not surprisingly, the resentment just seemed to grow.

After assessing the situation we helped the HR person come up with a new tactic. She led a team building day with everyone in the company that started with a fun activity. Once they were relaxed and enjoying being together, she illustrated the growth potential of a more collaborative decision-making process. She addressed all concerns such as the fear that consulting with other team leaders would mean losing contracts. She provided facts to prove that an over-focus on sales was ironically costing everyone in terms of morale, productivity, customer service, employee health, and ultimately revenue. Even though it looked like the focus on sales was all about growth, it was coming from a fear-based mindset. She offered success stories of similar firms that were consulting with each other before signing deals and still thriving very well.To make a long story short, they found a way to restructured resources in a way that seemed more equitable to all concerned and decided that all team leaders would be consulted before signing any client contracts. In the end this allowed for much better external (and internal) customer service.

Habits got you where you are and so the good news is that new habits can eventually get you where you want to go. Habits write new neuron pathways in your brain. Over time this creates a new default. This of course isn’t new information.  Aristotle, the ancient Greek philosopher, once said:”We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, therefore, is not an act but a habit.”  Here’s a couple of examples, Linda’s new habit of walking to the gym instead of driving helped her lose 5 extra pounds over one year. Mark’s new habit of getting all his supplies ready by the door the night before helped him stop being late.

Here are 5 tried and true habits for creating the change you want:

1.  Create an ideal outcome

David Whyte, an expert on workplace creativity, is quoted as saying “The antidote to exhaustion is not necessarily rest, but often it’s wholeheartedness.” Often you can’t change something because you are far too focused on what you don’t want. This only reinforces it and can make you exhausted. See if you can reframe in terms of what you do want. For example, “I don’t want to attend these long boring meetings,” becomes “I’d like to have shorter, more engaging and productive meetings.” “I am tired of this constant back pain” becomes “I’d like to have a healthy spine.” Sounds simple, but do you do actually practice this as much as you could? That habit alone of reframing could create a sense of wholeheartedness that will fuel your change like nothing else.

Bottom Line

Here are 4 short activities to help you try these habits:

1. Write out 3 complaints you have in your life and reframe them in terms of what you want instead.
2. The next time something happens that triggers an “unhelpful” negative response throw both arms in the air and yell out “Excellent!”
3. Spend an hour this weekend de-cluttering one area of your home. While doing it, think of a goal you’d like to manifest and see if this helps move you further towards your goal.
4. Think of a change you want to make and then simply ask yourself “If I were exceptional at ___________ (being the change I want to see) – what would I do?”

For more ideas, tips, programs and support go to The Artistry of Change web site

If you would like to explore your creative potential in a highly inspiring, safe and beautiful environment, come to our annual Artistry of Change retreat at Hollyhock Oct. 1-4, 2009

In this program you will discover:

* habits that will allow you to continually re-invent yourself and keep your creative fire alive
* a 10-step self-coaching process you can use the rest of your life
* how to see past limited beliefs to find your real truth
* how to create a results-based action plan to manifest this next phase of your life

Watch this video of Carla talking about how to overcome the obstacles to embodying your vision or life purpose

Carla Rieger’s Artistry of Change® model allows you to burn away the dross and find the gold that’s been waiting for you. Through interactive, creative, playful, fun activities, Carla shows you the steps necessary to inspire your best creative work while effectively handling resistance, uncertainty and self-doubt. This approach blends the best of the world of artistry with the human potential movement in exciting new ways.

Benefits of taking this program include:

* tools to overcome your natural resistance to change
* how to harness negativity in your life for creativity
* getting crystal clear on what you want to manifest
* a specific action plan that you can implement immediately
* on-going support and accountability to take action in the world

Modalities for working will be:

* interactive creativity exercises
* slide show and entertaining videos
* group work and debriefing
* solo work

Come with a specific outcome you’d like to manifest such as a career, health, relationship or personal goal. This workshop is for people who have sensed that they are stuck in life and that the “stuckness” is costly them.

Carla Rieger is a creativity and innovation catalyst. As an author, educator, coach and entertainer, she works with individuals and organizations internationally to help them stay on their creative edge. Her books on innovation, communication and change plus her novels and plays are all designed to ignite people’s creative fire.

The Artistry of Change Retreat is coming up October 1-4, 2009, at Hollyhock on beautiful Cortes Island. Join us for a rare opportunity to get clear on what is next in your life. There are still some scholarships available. Check out the Hollyhock website for more info on scholarships or email Scholarship for application information.

To register click here.

Having fun at one of Carla’s retreat:

Just get a new job, start a business, train in a new career, come up with a new product or service, find a different kind of customer, create a new business model and so on.

Fear of death

The reality of re-inventing yourself, however, can be immensely difficult because of several issues, one of which rarely gets talked about. That issue is the fear of death. It sounds strange, but some psychologists say that all fear can be traced back to fear of death. In the context of reinvention this would be about death of the personality or the existing identity or structure and the familiarity of the status quo.

Without death there can be no creativity in life

We are genetically programmed to enter into an intense state of fear at the thought of our demise or anything we are attached to. Yet, the Buddhists say that without death, there can be no joy in life, no creativity. Or as Mary Catherine Bateson said at the BRC in February: “We need to be able to walk into the forest and see that all of its beauty is intertwined with the process of death feeding back into the life of the forest.”  David Whyte talks about it eloquently in this video, that death or destruction of the old is a necessary part of the artistic tradition. And, if we are the artists of our lives, our work, and our businesses it helps to periodically let go of the old.

You have an entire subconscious ability to learn things at profound levels in short periods of time if you let yourself. Think of it like downloading information off somebody else’s website.  Let’s call the process, “genius downloads”. For example, I notice I am more organized and punctual when I’m working on a project with someone who has those skills in spades.  I am funnier when I’m hanging around with friends who have a better sense of humour than I do. I’m more articulate when I’m hanging around my writer friends.

A habit to go beyond the naysaying mind

Many people intellectually understand a concept like this and can logically see the benefit in utilizing it, but they simply don’t do it. They already have a set of habits in place that keep the framework of “That’s impossible” running the show.

Neuroscience, however, has shown us that a small habit performed regularly forms a new neuron pathway in your brain. If you make the new choice often enough that neuron pathway gets larger and eventually becomes your default. For example, perhaps you used to think, “It is impossible for me to speak before a large audience and feel confident about it”. Now you do it all the time. Somewhere along the way the neuron pathway that says, “It is possible for me to speak in front of large groups” became your default. It helps to pay attention to what changes your default from impossible to possible.

What makes your mindset switch from impossible to possible?

You have, at some time your life, faced something that felt impossible at first but which became possible. For example, running a marathon, getting the job you have now, finding the right partner, overcoming a bad habit, turning around your financial situation, writing a book, starting a business, getting your health back, etc.

What made your mindset switch from impossible to possible? When we survey people it’s usually some form of:

Embedded within your mind right now is the answer to making your present impossible task possible. You just need to unleash your innate wisdom.

Making human rights popular – Martin Luther King Jr. In his famous speech in 1963 entitled “I Have a Dream,” Dr. King shared his vision of a world where people could coexist harmoniously. While things are far from perfect, what seemed impossible in the 1960’s has certainly become possible now.

Putting a man an on the moon – John F. Kennedy gave a famous speech in 1961 in which he challenged America to send a man to the moon by the end of the decade. Most people seriously doubted that would ever happen, but that dream was achieved on July 20, 1969.

Reducing gang violence – Nelsa Curbelo, a 66-year-old former nun and schoolteacher, took on the toughest young criminals in Ecuador’s most violent city and won them over with love.

Inventing well-loved products – Dick Drew’s development of the first masking tape for 3M is an example of his extraordinary gift for overcoming impossible odds. It took hundreds of tries to achieve the right kind of glue and tremendous powers of influence to get the funding necessary from 3M because it was the beginning of the Great Depression. Side note: did you know that 3M at first rejected the scientist who invented Post-It Notes – they deemed it useless at the time.

Curing Homelessness. When Hannah Taylor was 5 years old she saw a man eating out of a garbage can. She asked her mother why he had to do that. When her mother explained homelessness, Hannah asked, “If everybody shared what they had would that cure the problem?” By the age of 8 she started The Ladybug Foundation. She now speaks internationally and has raised in excess of $2 million that support over 40 shelters.