They say, "Challenge yourself, go outside your comfort zone, do hard things and you will grow..."
Well, I grew a lot on February 3rd when I presented my first Creativity Coaching Class!
I literally had to coach myself through the whole process: securing the venue, writing the outline, advertising the class, practicing the presentation over and over again so that it appeared casual and mostly off-the-hip.
I had to coach myself to shut down the internal voice telling me, “this is a terrible idea, nobody wants to hear this stuff, especially from you.”
I was standing there as my own petri dish experiment, having just experienced a realtime mind screw and alleviated it through physical/diet tweaks. Yet the only negative feedback I received from the class survey was that I spent too long on health and fitness. PEOPLE!
Everything that percolates out of our being is 100% affected by the biological and physical state of our being... this includes creativity, duh.
So since I had already checked the boxes of exercise, diet, sleep and meditation, my hardest obstacle was standing up in front of people to present ideas that I myself am just leaning.
The class was titled 8 STEPS TO 10X YOUR CREATIVITY and "Controlling Your Thoughts" was step 3... it was so weird to be verbally practicing step 3 while experiencing the same negative self-talk that I am teaching others to control! It was obvious that I had to step outside myself and have a little chat.
Presenting a painting or drawing class/workshop is completely in my comfort zone - no practice needed. But this was uncharted territory and I was struggling to build the assurance I needed to appear confident. So I ran an extra mile the next day (my routine is 4 miles every morning), meditated an extra 25 minutes and ate super clean.
During my final practice run-through the day before the presentation, I was super pumped, smiling at the level my confidence had reached, and excited to share my knowledge. "Mindset" (step 5) and "Meaning and Purpose" (step 6) are huge slices of the creativity pie; health and fitness I believe is even BIGGER.
I could write on many focuses from this class, but I think that when they say do the hard stuff and you will grow, it starts with the hardest thing, which is taking care of ourselves. Once you wrangle that business you are guaranteed to grow mentally.
So if getting outside your comfort zone means going to a gym or changing up your diet, then simply taking action and “just doing it” is ultimately your fist step toward 10X-ing your creative life.
W.C. Brock
