Creative Avoidance...and how to learn from it.

Post date: 04-Mar-2011 17:11:37

How time flies, how did it get to be March already and I find myself logging on almost four months since I last posted my regular “weekly” blog!

As a result I find myself reflecting on the old adage that those who can do and those who can’t teach! There I was today talking to a group about recognising procrastination and creative avoidance as constructive psychological feedback that there’s an underlying attitude in need of change when all the time I’m ignoring my own!

Because, don’t kid yourself – all that rationalisation (aka excuse making) about how busy you’ve been, how much else you’ve had on etc etc is really creative avoidance and procrastination. If I really wanted to get this done, I would.

And so, as is often the case, I learned more from my group today than they perhaps did from me. Our subconscious is so good at getting us out of those things we don’t want to do, that sometimes it gets us out of doing things we think we want to. In those cases, we need some honest self-assessment: what is it about this task that I’m resisting? What attitude or belief do I hold that is driving my creative avoidance?

I have yet to unearth that attitude in need of attention but in the meantime, I’m breaking the pattern by taking immediate action! Most likely the attitude is connected to fear (as so many blocking attitudes and beliefs are) – fear that no-one reads the blog so there’s no point, or fear that lots of people do and will find it wanting. And so, though I’ve not read the book, I’ll borrow the phrase – feel the fear and do it anyway. In either case, it’s only by posting regularly that I can generate the feedback I need to address either the quality or the popularity of my blog.

Brian Tracy, another writer I like, puts it this way – anything worth doing, is worth doing badly…at first. Unless you get started, you wont build the necessary practice and get the necessary feedback to improve. If we wait until we’re ready to be perfect at a new endeavour, we’ll be waiting and waiting… Far better to start and then perfect our approach as we go along. Or, as the army allegedly trains recruits: if you’re under sniper fire and you don’t know where it’s coming from, start running. It’s easier to change direction when you’re moving than to start from a standing start. So here I am, running again and ready for feedback to improve my direction!