things like a sponge, which can make them tired, anxious, and overwhelmed. Issues of self-esteem, lack of self-acceptance, and weak problem-solving skills can undermine the careers of people with ideaphoria, leaving them under-employed, unhappy, and underpaid. Sometimes highly creative people are misdiagnosed with anxiety and depression when they simply need outlets for their creative ideas. They need people and projects that can benefit from their highly productive capacity for new ideas—it is creative imagination.
There are six strategies that I teach people who have ideaphoria to help them avoid its pitfalls:
1 Celebrate your talents and heal from your misunderstandings. One potential pitfall is negative self-talk, with you wishing that you were more focused. Acknowledge that you need meaningful projects in which to express your creativity and that you may have multiple careers and identities, and that is okay. There is nothing wrong with you, but you do need to learn how to control it. You are also vulnerable to burnout and sensory overload.
2 Be sure to come up with an effective way to record your ideas daily; then look for patterns or themes. Your ideas are valuable. Then focus on which one to three ideas excite you the most right now.
3 Learn to say NO, not now. You need strong filters so that you don't get overloaded with too much input. You need to put up formidable boundaries. Unsubscribe from magazines, blogs, newsletters, etc. and make a decision about what new data you are willing to receive right now and delete the rest—for now. Look at the short-term view of what you are working on at the moment and beware of the lure of bright, shiny, new objects. Note them down and file them away until later.
4 Clear the clutter in your life. Keep one or two books by your bed, not fifteen. Find someone who can help you to get organized and clear away everything that you are not going to complete. A personal organizer who is very structured can be a life changer.
5 You must develop a decision-making process for yourself, which is why a coach or a mentor is essential. Think in three-month quarters, and plot out what you will do during that time to support your big vision and your life purpose. Then cut down your list so that it is realistic. Can't decide what book to write? Start with the one that you most want to write or one that is almost complete that you still feel passionate about—but choose one. Several support systems may be needed to keep you on track.
6 Design a daily centering process to review your goals and affirmations each morning, so that you remember what they are. Because you are so attracted to the new and the novel, you may forget your current plan and not reap the benefits of your idea generation and execution.
Convergent thinkers are creative too, but they may need a push to learn to tap into their creative ideas. Start by keeping an Excitement List. For two weeks, write down anything that excites you—a color, a word, a concept, a person— and then have someone help you look at the patterns. Then try the Creativity Catalysts at the end of the chapter for a jump-start. You can train yourself to notice your creative ideas by journaling about them with your Excitement List, and by having novel and interesting adventures every week to stimulate new ways of thinking.
Take a different route home from work, wear a color that you never wore before (that's in your color chart, of course), talk to an intriguing person in a favorite store, travel to someplace you have longed to see. Shake up your life and see what emerges. It's all about making new connections between concepts.
INFUSING YOUR MUSE
It is vital that you make a connection with your inner muse so that she or he can become your personal Idea Manager. You need tools and assistance that will help you to capture your ideas so that you don't lose your inspiration. But you need your muse to walk you through a system that leads to evaluating and deciding about these choices. Ultimately, you must choose only one to three creative projects at a time or your energy will be much too scattered.
A lot of my coaching work with clients involves taking them through a research and decision-making process about each of their precious creative ideas and helping them to choose the wisest and most compelling one to focus on. Our first step, though, is getting acquainted with our inner muse. My muse, Tiffany, is a lovely, blonde, classy lady who lives in a luxurious cave high above the Coral Beach Club in Bermuda with a view of my beloved beach with its clear blue water, gorgeous grape leaves, and caves to explore. I discovered her many years ago in a meditation at EST and she has been my inner guide ever since. She meets with me whenever I like.
Here are some tips to help you find and build a solid relationship with your muse.
My friend Deborah Knox sent me an amazing book called Sleeping with Schubert by Bonnie Marson. It is a story of the transformation of a bored female lawyer, Liza Durbin, who was inhabited by the composer Franz Shubert's spirit. Her life became a creative journey extraordinaire. All of a sudden, she was playing concerts, listening to all kinds of music, co-composing music, and launching into a career as a performer. While there were many anxious moments and lots of controversy, Liza had the opportunity to dance and converse with a musical genius, and she became immersed in her own creative gifts and explorations. It is an engaging tale of passion, love, and creative risk-taking. While it is a fictional story, there are many lessons woven into the story for those of us with creative souls. These lessons include:
Read about the lives of creative people you admire in your field, visit their houses, look at their original works, and study their contemporaries in diverse fields.
Take a day or a week to pretend you are one of your muses and dress like them, visit their city, or adopt their creative schedules or habits. Get as much insight as possible into their lives and talents.
Make a collage about your muse and study it. Then, at the right time, choose his or her best success strategies and incorporate them into your own creative practice.
When you are ready to grow again, move on to a new mentor and begin the process anew. It will be life-changing!
An interesting note: this was Bonnie's first novel, and film rights for the book were recently purchased by Paramount Pictures. Bonnie is a long-time artist, and her own adventure with a muse has brought her great success.
WHEN I MET MY MUSE
“I glanced at her and took my glasses off—they were still singing. They buzzed like a locust on the coffee table and then ceased. her voice belled forth, and the sunlight bent. I felt the ceiling arch, and knew that the nails up there took a new grip on whatever they touched. ‘I am your own way of looking at things,’ she said. ‘When you allow me to live with you, every glance at the world around you will be a sort of salvation. And I took her hand.’”
—Wilma Stafford
Now is the perfect time to connect more deeply with your inner muse and invite new mentors and colleagues to support your creative growth. Consider the following questions:
1 What actions can I take to spend more time with my inner creative guide?
2 What inner messages do I need to honor to make my creativity a priority right now?
3 What kind of creative skill development do I need to tackle? What will take me to a higher level of expertise?
4 Who am I attracted to who could potentially be a new mentor or colleagues, and how do I access these people?
Enjoy your adventures!
Now that you have your muse to
