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Personal growth: The danger of over-seriousness in our creative projects February 27, 2014

Posted by Dennis Mellersh in The Creative Process.
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We can take it as a “given” that initiating, building, and maintaining a program of personal growth or development requires a disciplined approach if it is to be successful. Such a personal initiative requires genuine commitment if it is to become a part of our daily life.

And yet, overdone, a deadening seriousness can settle over our attitude and subsequent efforts, which eventually can lead to a loss of energy.

A lack of playfulness or fun in our self-improvement program will diminish the likelihood of reaching our full potential in our growth plan.

This is especially true if we have included pursuing a creative interest or project as part of our program.   It’s particularly important to bring some lightness in approach and execution to the creative segment(s) of our self-improvement efforts. Indeed, perhaps to our entire program, which, being self-generated, is a creative effort in itself.

Psychiatrist and philosopher Carl Jung wrote extensively on the need for a degree of playfulness in the creative process and I’ve chosen a couple of quotations that illustrate his point:

“The creation of something new is not accomplished by the intellect but by the play instinct acting from inner necessity. The creative mind plays with the objects it loves.”

“Without this playing with fantasy no creative work has ever yet come to birth. The debt we owe to the play of the imagination is incalculable.”

The role of action in overcoming fear and doubt November 27, 2012

Posted by Dennis Mellersh in Fear and Anxiety.
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In our personal growth and development efforts we sometimes need to attack our ego’s tendency to fill our minds with fear and foreboding about starting a new project or embarking on a new path in our life journey.

In any new effort towards increasing our potential, our ego (the little voice in our heads) may have a tendency to throw up cautionary warnings about our planned or hoped-for course of action. It fact, it sometimes seems as if the ego considers its main job to be placing fears and doubts in the way of what we would like to do, particularly when it comes to taking steps to improve our lives.

Although we may try to block out this “voice of the ego”, it can be difficult to do so. When the ego cannot be ignored, one of the best approaches is to fight through the fears and doubts by taking action towards whatever we want to pursue or accomplish.

Here are a couple of quotations that I enjoy, and which may help you push through your fear by taking action.

The first is by the late writer Ray Bradbury discussing what you need to do in fearful situations:

“Stand at the top of the cliff; jump off; and then build your wings on the way down.”

The second quote I suggest you consider is by the late Dr. Norman Vincent Peale, a minister and influential writer on the concept of positive thinking.

“Action is a great restorer and builder of confidence. Inaction is not only the result, but the cause, of fear. Perhaps the action you take will be successful; perhaps different action or adjustments will have to follow. But any action is better than no action at all.”