How to break free
- 1. How to break free? For people who are stuck at the same place for a long time.
- 2. One step at a time.Take one hour, one day at a time. Concentrate on THE PRESENT.Long term goals only add pressure as you will always think about how much work that needs to be put in.Approach short term goals like a league game in a world cup. Design your goals in an innovative way. E.g Design your goals like an IPL match schedule! Have some mock shows where you will be the expert discussing about your prospects in the tournament. Discuss your strengths. Design a logo for yourself! Design the match schedule. Write mock newspaper articles about your prospects. These things may sound futile and funny but sometimes, these things get us excited. When we merely write our goals on a paper, the brain doesn’t take things seriously. When goals are decorated in an innovative way, the mind automatically gets interested in accomplishing them.
- 3. Be AWARE.This is the MOST important point. Just be aware. Be aware every minute.When you become an observer, you are in a better position to stop the negative thoughts. You become aware of the time you are wasting in thinking the same thoughts.Being aware is better than forcefully trying to get rid of negative thoughts. You are not exactly disrupting the natural flow of thoughts.
- 4. Get busy Don’t be idle for a long time. Read incessantly. Listen to new music. Learn new things even if they are not related to your profession. E.g try reading about heavy metal or nuclear medicine. Something unrelated or related. Knowledge is never unnecessary. You can even try to explain what you understood about totally new things, creatively.This doesn’t mean you don’t pause to reflect on what you have read. It is important to reflect as just reading enormous amount of data will drain your brain. The idea is to constantly have new ideas, new insights, new perspectives instead of thinking about the same things again and again.
- 5. Cool as a cucumberFear is only important to an extent that it keeps you on your toes. Only use fear to remind yourself that it is high time that you prove your worth. Beyond that, fear only restricts us from being ourselves and leads to underperformance. But those who value excellence don’t have to be motivated by fear. They will give their 100 percent not because they have a fear of not doing things but because they can’t give anything less than 100 percent.When there is a problem, worry is important only to the extent that it gives us the signal that something is wrong. After your get this signal, you should keep the worry aside and concentrate on the problem. This is a quality that is possessed by great sportsmen. They acknowledge that things are wrong and then they let their mind find solutions. On the other hand, mediocre players let worry cloud their mind. If the external world is not letting your mind to be in peace, use an analytical way in the creative process. E.g. List all the attributes, everything related to the product.
- 6. Creativity is not talent.The greatest worry among artists is if they are talented enough or not. But creativity is not talent, it is a thought process. If you have an ordinary voice and you want to be a singer, then it is a matter of worry as the issue is about talent. But when it comes to creativity it is a way of thinking. Even though there is an element of uncertainty in the process of creating which is indeed a matter of worry but true artists thrive on this uncertainty. There is an incredible high in this unpredictable process of creating. This is what makes the creative process joyful! The moment your mind realizes that the achievement of your goal will be based on your hard work which will consist of experimenting, failing and not based upon talent, the fear of not being good enough will fizzle out.
- 7. The first step will be the hardest step.Your first step or should we say the first match will be hardest. That is because your mind is so used to be in a comfort zone. It will try its best to tell you that it is okay if you don’t try. It is okay if you give up easily. It is okay as there is always tomorrow. That the schedule that you designed is just childish.It will be extremely difficult to fight the unbelievable amount of resistance that the mind will put forward. But remember that if you manage to fight this and break this thing that has been stopping you from creating, you have won half the battle. The first step will give you immense confidence as this act of yours was something new after a long time and the courage that was required to break the shackles will give you a momentum which will be hard to break. But to achieve this momentum, one had to fight the toughest battle for his long term goal. The will to breakthrough, to not repeat the monotonous stuff once again can be used to motivation.When your mind is resisting, it is always recommended to remember those performances when all odds were against you. If you had done it that time, there is no reason why you can’t do it again.Use certain visual images or statements. E.g You can remember a brilliant fielding effort by your favorite cricket player..who showed amazing commitment and passion to make a difference in the game. You can put his picture as your desktop wallpaper. Whenever your mind resists, look / remember that image. Always remind yourself that it is not a great thing to win in favorable conditions. The true sign of a great artists the one who creates when odds are against him.
- 8. Discipline Though the creative process is unpredictable, you cannot just sit idle and expect ideas to come. You need to make all efforts to get THAT signal, that big idea. How? By constantly trying out different combinations, by coming out with new ideas EVEN IF THEY ARE NONSENSE. The idea is not be IDLE in the creative process. Always come up with something new, even if it is crap. Don’t you hate it when your favorite teams scores 60 odd runs in the 1st five overs and then is all out for 100? Or is brilliant with the bat but bowls terribly? Or gives away the match in the last over? In the same way, sometimes you get so excited with your visual idea that you become lazy when you start writing the text. Great artists/ sportsmen are restless till the end. It is difficult to stay focused all the time but if you really love what you are doing, you won’t find it difficult to stay focused. If you are one of those people who is not used to working your ass off then take 30 minutes at a time. Ideate for 30 minutes, take a break, read something/listen to a song and come back. Have micro goals. Let’s say you don’t want to achieve the goal of visual idea at one go. Have a goal of having 15 ideas per 1 hour.Always remember your past achievements when your mind gives up saying that you won’t be able to come up with a great idea. Do something new in b/w the process of creating. Take some utensils and start creating music out of them, create a new tune & record it. Make a new song! Make a PPT on a topic that you love. Photoshop something. Design something for a friend who means a lot to you. Always keep in mind that visuals and sounds have a greater impact on the brain that words.
- 9. The biggest threat: Going back to the same old life again. The biggest threat is falling back to the same habits. It just takes one hour or one day to negate the first step that you worked so hard for. Remember even minnows a game against great teams occasionally. But they will never be champions. So always start with zero. Don’t start flying after overcoming the 1st hurdle. Don’t ever think that you have proved your worth till the last creation. But at the same time, past achievements should be always used during the time when you are having adverse problems in creating. The best way to stop this from happening is being AWARE.
- 10. Concentrate on the process, not on the goal. When you truly love what you are doing, it is not work! Hence, love the process of creating instead of worrying about the goal.When you start enjoying the process, you don’t need any kind of PPTs or tips as you are dying to get up in the middle of the night to work on it!Worrying about the goal can be a great hindrance but always remind yourself that when you truly enjoy the process, it won’t matter what the goal is.When you consistently enjoy the process, results will start being in your favor.
- 11. Fear of failure.It is the mother of all disasters.When you absolutely love your work but yet you are unable to do it, then the only reason is fear of failure.Say to yourself that you will deal with the failure (in case you fail), AFTER YOUR FAIL. Great champions have fear of failure too but they do not care about it BEFORE THE GAME IS OVER!!
- 12. FailureThe worst possible outcome is failure. Even champions fail and make mistakes. But the difference between champions and mediocre people is that THEY MAKE NEW MISTAKES.Reasons for failure: Lack of focus, not putting in hard work, clinging to the old ideas, getting too excited and giving away the match to the opponent. However sometimes failure happens even when we do all the things right. It is impossible to win all the time. However there are companies like Pixar which always had a hit!! Always put yourself in the audience’s shoes and you will instantly know if your creation is good or not.