Are You Using Your Creative Success Mechanism?

[success] If people knew how hard I had to work to gain my mastery, it wouldn’t seem so wonderful at all. ~Michelangelo[/success]

Who was the man who said knowledge is power…’cos I’ve got a bone to pick with him.

Yep, I’m talking about you Francis Bacon, you Englishman of byegone days.  Knowledge without application is useless mister.  And yes, I’m speaking from personal experience and from the perspective of watching others with tons of knowledge and little or no application all the while wondering what the heck is going on in their lives.

Knowledge is a useful tool, don’t get me wrong…but so is a hammer and a drill when you use them, otherwise they just sit in a box doing…well nothing.

I understand having knowledge and not applying it…I do it my own self.  I forget.

The knowledge I have about these here Laws of Life isn’t always the first place I go.  It often is.  Just not always…so I understand the struggle we sometimes have.  I understand that we all get caught up in reactions that are sometimes hard to put down, to let go of…we become so involved with our feelings about a situation that they begin to take over.

My Mum used to tell me when I was a kid complaining about some other bratty kid that it was less what happened in life but more how we dealt with it that made a difference.

Yeah, yeah…but…

And then I’d be right back where I started, rattling on about the injustice, the cheek…blah, blah, blah.

[success] Character…the willingness to accept responsibility for one’s own life…is the source from which self-respect springs. ~ Joan Didion[/success]

And this willingness to be responsible for our life doesn’t happen without the fuel of awareness.  Awareness is always the beginning.  Awareness that where we are is not where we want to be.  Awareness of the desire to be great, to expand to grow to bloom.

You may be feeling a bit lost, not certain of the direction you want to take.  You may not like the way you look.  You might have a chronic illness or just have the blooming ‘flu.  You might not be feeling too blessed in life.  You might not have your desire for a loving relationship fulfilled yet.  You might be struggling financially.  Someone might have really ticked you off.  Or…a myriad of other things that I haven’t yet thought of.

And I’m here to tell you it’s okay.  It’s all okay.  This too shall pass.  Everything does.

What you mustn’t do is give up and give in.

We simply continue to practice.  For those of us who’ve studied this stuff for a long time, we continue to practice.  For those who are new to the path, we continue to practice.  If we forget today, we practice again tomorrow and the next day and the day after that.  One little step in front of another.  It’s all good.

In chatting with an author friend the other day we were talking about our writing habits.  He wanted to know how I wrote my posts.  Did I just get on my computer and write?

He said he was stuck on a chapter so I asked him if he first imagined that he’d written it, and how easy it was and how much he liked it?

He was flabbergasted.  He, who’d studied and practiced these laws of life for as long as I had, didn’t remember to use them.

It’s okay.  We forget, we fall over but we pick ourselves up, dust ourselves off and start all over again.  The important thing is to keep applying what we know.

As I said, knowledge without application is pretty useless, it’s just information.  How many bookshelves do you suppose are filled with information garnered, maybe agreed with, and then put back to rest on the shelf.  Not helpful.

So here we are awake and aware, knowing and standing before the path that leads to fulfillment of purpose, of desires, of a more wonderful and more magnificent life…but are we willing to walk it?

To paraphrase a performance coach the difference between the amateur and a top notch athlete is the number of thoughts they have.  Top athletes work constantly to control their thoughts and feelings, and as they do so, they create a strong focus, and top performances.  They create daily practices, rituals, routines to support their desire to excel.

[success] Competing is exciting and winning is exhilarating, but the true prize will always be the self-knowledge and understanding that you have gained along the way. ~ Sebastian Coe, four-time Olympic medalist and chairman of the LOCOG[/success]

So it is for all of us in the performance of our lives.  Our true prize in practicing the laws of life every day, at every  possible opportunity is greater self awareness, leading to a greater and more magnificent life experience.

Getting the knowledge obviously comes first, but after that comes the challenge for us all, the daily practice.  And this practice isn’t about doing more, its about doing less and being more.

We begin by:

1. Stop looking at the obstacles and keep your eyes on the prize. For the prize is you.

2. We all must be before we can do.

3. Try creating a routine that consists of sitting and imagining happy outcomes.  Learn to calm that monkey mind and allow the opportunity for new thoughts and ideas to arise.

4. Meditate, contemplate.

5. Decide where you’re going and why and then steer yourself gently in that direction.

6. Give yourself a chance to tap into the intuitive you, the spiritual you, the you that has all the answers.

7. And most of all stop the negative self talk.  The concept you hold of yourself is incredibly important.

Don’t suppose any top athlete spends too much time in thinking how awful they are, or how incompetent, or they just don’t know how to do things.  They’re not playing small.  Are you?

As Maxwell Maltz put it…and yes he said it sooo much better than I could…when you see a thing clearly in your mind, your creative success mechanism within you takes over and does the job much better than you could do it by conscious effort or willpower.

Have you discovered or created routines that work best for you, with your particular lifestyle?  You can support and encourage us all if you share them in the comments below. Go on, be a sport.

Encourage one another.