Attitude, Creative Mojo and the End of 2011

With just about a month left in 2011, people are all a flurry making holiday plans, buying gifts and finishing up year end projects. It’s the proverbial “time crunch” — busting ass to fit in every possible thing you pledged with your heart and soul to do before year end, but some how fell to the wayside. Creative mojo is replaced with a sense of obligation, and attitudes quickly shift to grouchy, irritated and rushed.

Throw in family obligations, year end commitments and the looming thoughts of how to plan for the best year EVAH next year, and no wonder people go a bit batty.

Pressure! But where is the pressure really coming from?

Personal expectations, internal judgments and comparing ourselves to others. The should, could and didn’t (s) all pile on, pushing you into over drive, triggering old fears of not being enough, right now. And these thought patterns are not something you picked up last week, they are life long ways of thinking and being. With each coming year there’s pressure to outdo ourselves in a way that is better, more spectacular and amazing than ever before.

And these long-term, out dated ideas play out time and time again — UNTIL you notice the cycle.

The reality is, you need to get a handle on what works for you now, at this point in your life, in this moment. If you are spending time “wishing things were and could be different, you are squelching creativity at its very source. You are denying the very mother of invention — NECESSITY! It’s the ability and desire for change that is the true inspiration for creativity in the first place.

I think the bravest thing anyone can do is look at their business and themselves with complete honesty and decide to make a change. Is it simple? Maybe. Could also be the most terrifying, gut-wrenching, ball busting thing you ever do. But if you aren’t willing to change the game, what do you really have left worth living for anyway?

The idea of the perfect “whatever”doesn’t exist in the way you expect because that would be predicting the future. The beauty is in being present, open and embracing what’s true in the moment, no “stories” attached, and transforming it into something amazing — in real time.

So if you really want inspiring, creative, on-fire mojo for next year, be willing to be vulnerable. Change your attitude. Open up. Let go. Surrender those ideas that drag behind you like stones, rolling over and crushing the green buds of new ideas in it’s wake. Give yourself the freedom to change, and your creative fire will walk up to greet you.

Photo by Mydass