Rhythmic Actions Make Creative Visions Real: Day 3 of 4 to Write Your Best Self’s Story

Note: This article is #4 in a 5-part series.
The introduction to the Be Possible Project will get you up to speed. Stay tuned for a special follow-up phase.
Day 1: Symphonic Activity
Day 2: Creative Dexterity

“What a big leap it is from vision to accomplishment….I’ve got work to do.”

That’s what a creative enterpriser wrote in response to completing the first writing prompt of this writing project. She has her vision. She feels it’s concrete, more so than just simply repeating to herself, “I will be successful this year.” Still, there’s this leap she mentions. She’s wisely acknowledging that vision alone is not enough. There’s work to do, indeed.

And I wonder if the path is a leap. There are those big moments when you quit your job and take a risk or invest your savings in an enterprise. There are those moments when you actually step onto a stage and deliver an extraordinary talk to 300, 1000 people. Those are leaps.

But I’ve found that most creative success comes from something kind of un-sexy and quiet –relevant rhythms. Rhythms of creative action.

How do you cross a wide gorge? Unless you can leap, you have to know what you’re doing, have a guide and the right tools, have a route, and pace yourself.

It’s those things – developing the know-how through trial-and-error, calling on the right guides, and pacing yourself with relevant rhythmic action – that are more likely to propel you to the end of 2012 with deep gratification.

Today’s writing invitation combined with yesterday’s does not give you so much the wings, the bungee cord, the Pippi Longstocking helicopter pigtails to make that leap.

Instead, it invites you into daily, weekly, and monthly rhythms. Into strategies. Into patterns of your mind. This prompt combined with yesterday’s prompt about challenges and obstacles should help you build solid bridges across those gorges day-by-day.

Your best self has this infinite capacity to change itself. That’s a super power. That’s a wonder.

THE WRITING INVITATION

Find a quiet, private place. Take 15-20 minutes to write into these questions.

As you look back on your best self’s symphonic activities in 2012, how did you get here?

How did you take care of your body to assure you got here? How did you take care of your mind and spirit?

What new skills did you pursue mastery of? How did you keep assuring that your best self stayed at its best?

How did you tend to your work flow and creation flow each day and week to assure you got here?

How did you make that daily and weekly rhythm pleasurable even if at times it was painful?

How did you allow your best self to be quiet and still? To be primed for wonder?

DROP IN THE HUT

I’m soooo curious what your experiences have been in writing into these prompts. Drop in and share your stories, your questions, your observations. Feel free to send me direct notes.

And don’t forget: On Friday, for those of you who finish all four prompts, I’ll announce a free offer by way of follow-up during at the end of the year.

And, yes, share the project on your Tweets and Facebook pages because everybody’s success this year contributes to ours.

See you in the woods,

Jeffrey

P.S. As I write this, this is what I see outside my study window: The sun rises over evergreens, and through the mist I can see silhouettes of two deer standing beside the pond and eating grass. I could weep the scene is so beautiful. Here’s a poem by Jane Hirshfield that seems apropos to our filling up and emptying: Standing Deer.