Shifting Perspectives [Life]

Have you ever felt stuck in the circumstance of your life? Have you ever said to yourself, “That is just the way it is”? My clients and I often come up against this. Coaching at these moments is like dancing. In dance, you move your body in space and time and with every movement, there is a new experience and a new vista opens up. It is magical when people begin to see the possibilities and choose their next steps with deliberate confidence. The April 2008 issue of Harvard Business Review features an interview with dancer/choreographer Twyla Tharp, author of The Creative Habit. I thought I would share with you three ways in which she shifts perspective on some common beliefs about creative risk-taking.

“There is a kind of arrogance in… intimidation. We think that it has to do with modesty. To the contrary…”

Tharp believes that Brahms didn’t write his first symphony until he was in his mid-40’s because he was intimidated by Beethoven. He was not thinking that he could never be as good (modesty) rather Tharp imagines he said to himself, ‘my first symphony is going to be better than Beethoven’s Ninth’ (arrogance) and that is what held him back. When you worry about being better than, or different from you are stopped in your tracks. Where in your life are you letting yourself be intimidated? It is in the doing that our creative spirit can have expression.

“Copying is taking somebody else’s solutions. Learning is taking somebody else’s problems.”

When you do take the risk and try something at which you are a novice, you might hear a voice in your head saying, ‘this is ridiculous; whatever I try to do will surely have been done before and far better than I could do it now.’ Tharp says, so what? Your attempts are all part of your own learning process and they induct you into a community of learners who are working on the same problems you are.

“True failure is a mark of accomplishment in the sense that something new and different was tried.”

One of my clients said to me recently, “I am really bad at failing”. This client’s life was basically on hold as he held himself back from anything that might lead to failure. Tharp says, celebrate failure! Our lives are like a block of clay that we get to keep molding and reshaping and throwing back and creating again- I truly believe that, if nothing else, we were put on this earth to create. If fear of failure keeps us from contributing our creative sprit to the world, then we are forfeiting our humanity.

I am not sure if Twyla Tharp would agree with me, but I am not going to be intimidated!