To do or to talk about doing

Sometimes our ego gets in our way of actually doing things!

The creative process often begins with a first brilliant idea, and then in our inner dialogue we paint in brilliant colors the amazing things we want to achieve. This is an important part of creativity, because if we fail to formulate our intention to ourselves, we have little chance to realise our dreams.

Often this is the easiest part of the creative process, but it feels so good! Because with this, we have actually left the starting blocks and are out on the track – at least that’s what we think. The “feel-good hormones” are flooding in our body and we feel at our creative peak.

The feeling of being on the way and the need for confirmation (that inner ego that has to be nurtured and watered all the time), means that we immediately begin to share with others what great deeds we have ahead of us.

Say that we have an idea for the plot of a new novel. A Facebook posting about our new author ambition immediately gets a lot of “likes” and encouraged by this, we continue to describe in detail our masterpiece to be. The confirmation we receive encourages us to continue – but not to do, but to talk about doing.

Eventually however, comes the moment of truth, when we actually sit down to get started with the actual creative work. But panic! Nothing comes out! That amazing plot for our novel suddenly feels quite thin, and the words are not flowing as we had expected.

Well, we can always go back to our social media and continue sharing our author efforts, because then we have achieved something. Our self-esteem is restored!

PS. Sometimes it is not a bad thing though that ideas remain as words and do not materialise. 🙂

This blog post was inspired by Cory Arcangel’s book “Working on my novel“.

  Detta blogginlägg på svenska.

Author: Karl Ekdahl

International public health leader and creativity blogger. View all posts by Karl Ekdahl