Work In Colour - Work. Think. Live. In Colour
Wednesday 22nd July 2009 | 2 comments
In many circles it is considered old-fashioned to be fully 'committed' in work or life...
But in the creative life, a fierce commitment to your work may be your most effective strategy to ensure you finish your project, or create that new career, or come up with a winning idea at work.
For any project that is challenging or involves you going outside your known universe, you'll need a fierce commitment to get through the obstacles - if you don't champion your work, who will?
A good model here is Robert Fritz's 'fundamental choice'. Fritz talks about serious commitment as a life orientation, not just making a decision or coming up with a new goal. A fierce commitment (or a fundamental choice) is not the kind of choice that is based on external circumstances, or moods or whatever and it's not about willpower. It's a much deeper choice to re-orient your life.
If you just 'decide' to give up smoking, it is really hard, no matter what system you choose; but make a deep, well thought-out, conscious choice to live a healthy life (including as a non-smoker) no matter the day-to-day challenges and temptations, & almost any system for quitting will work.
A fierce commitment is more important than the obstacles. It is something to hold you on course when doubts surface at 3am, the inner critic pops up inside your head, or other priorities intrude (be they sleep, socialising or that new TV program), or it just all seems to hard.
A fierce commitment or fundamental choice for creativity may be to orient yourself around the creative life, & use this as a litmus test for everything else of importance in your life. Once you have made the commitment, you can ask: 'Will this goal or decision or project move me towards a more creative life, or not? And if not, why do it?'
It's a way to reorient your life, to actually create your own life. It might take the form of a fierce commitment to your ideal career, to becoming a better problem-solver, to incorporating creative thinking into your life...or to getting your physical and mental health back on track.
It is a big shift - from reacting or responding, moving away from what you don't want, being dictated to by the circumstances of your life, to making a fundamental choice, moving towards what you do want.
A related idea that works well for particular projects (rather than a whole re-orientation of your life) is Eric Maisel's 'provisional belligerent commitment'.
He says it needs to be 'belligerent' because you must champion your project absolutely and full-heartedly; go into it with enthusiasm and determination and complete commitment.
But it must also be 'provisional' because your idea may not pan out the way you think; you may come to the difficult realisation that the painting or the novel you started is not going to work in its present form, or the great new idea you had at work is not of interest to your market - then, you must have the courage to abandon it and find another project to which you can give your full provisional belligerent commitment.
I found this concept very useful when I hit overlapping roadblocks in two projects a while ago - both hit rough patches at the same time, both needed long hours rethinking the work, dealing with difficult feedback or mismatches between my ideas & others. I asked myself: 'Do I have a fierce commitment, enough to justify the hours and emotional work to see these projects to the finish?' The answer was 'Yes' for one of the projects, but the other project (although it made rational sense) was not connected to my deeper values and not something I cared enough about. Although it took some time, I managed to extricate myself (with grace, I hope) from one and pour all my energy into the other.
I like 'fierce (provisional) commitment' for projects (as 'belligerent' was my mother's describing of my less than polished teenage behaviour) and fundamental choice for life changes, but whichever concept appeals, the idea is very sound and can make the difference between giving up and seeing it through to the end.
It is important that the choice, the commitment, be a conscious and deliberate act. It will only then form the bedrock of your work. So, how do you make a fierce commitment, a belligerent provisional commitment or a fundamental choice?
First, decide if you truly want this change, deep down. This may require some thinking, reflection journal writing or a walk along a quiet beach.
Second, know what you want. You'll need to get really clear on the vision and absolutely know how the end result will look, feel, sound etc.
Third, choose it, make a deep and conscious decision about where to place your energies. This may call for candles and a glass of wine, or it might happen on a walk, or just a shift inside that says, 'Yes'. Whatever, do it as a conscious process, make the time to think, then choose.
Tags: creativity, tips, commitment
This is such a revelation - it turns on its head all the things we thought about creativity, doesn't it?
And I now realise I was never belligerent enough!
Marianne
It's quite radical when you think about it, isn't it? Deserves a bit of thinking about...