Do you ever wonder why when you create something you can’t seem to make it successful? Are you stopping short of completion? Are you expecting too much too soon? When it doesn’t fulfill your demands, do you give up in disappointment?
A few years ago, I participated in an Innovation Conference in Sophia Antipolis. One of the key points of the conference was that most companies require new products to succeed immediately. They do not allow – financially or philosophically – for failure. But innovation does not occur without failure. Failure, I would add, is part of the development of all creative work.
For creative people, knowing when to stop creating is often tough. Sometimes we can’t let go (I’ll talk about that day after tomorrow). But sometimes we demand too much too soon and give up when it doesn’t materialize.
I’ve seen in myself and in my clients that when the first sign of a product appears in the world we relax. “I have something now. I’m ready to go!” But if we start talking about it too soon or we put it up for sale before it’s been debugged, it will not succeed.
This post is #10 in a series of 12 which takes you through the 12 stages of the creative process as I describe it in my book, The Wheel Of Creativity: Taking Your Place in the Adventure Of Life.
Step 10: Let it be.
The 10th step in the creative journey is to let it be. Station 10 in the Wheel of Creativity is Nurturing.
In Breakthrough, you saw the first expression of a creative product. It could be a first draft, a melody line, a prototype for a widget, or even a first date. Nurturing is the place where you are asked to protect your creation, to keep it to yourself, to give it time to mature and develop before you expect it to succeed in the world.
At this stage, with this beautiful newborn in your arms, the excitement of creation is hard to contain. But if you don’t, the energy required to perfect, refine and mature the project gets siphoned off. And all your hard work can be lost… to competitors, to ineffectiveness, to disappointment.
This thing that sits in front of you now is a beautiful thing in its own right; but it’s not yet ready to go out into the world. There is a time for refinement, and that comes next in…
Step 11, which I’ll describe tomorrow.
Learn more.
Twelve days, 12 steps. One step each day on the road of creating your life. To be sure you don’t miss one of the steps, move your cursor up the sidebar on the right and type your email address into the box beneath “Don’t miss a post! Get blog alerts.” I’ll email them to you.
At the end of the 12 days, on September 15th, I’ll also be offering a free half-hour Discovery Call in which you can learn more about the Wheel of Creativity and an in-depth course I’ll be offering this Autumn.