I’m pretty brill. Especially when it comes to generating ideas. I used to be invited into conference rooms to brainstorm on all sorts of topics, and I could generate 100s of ways to market or promote the client’s product. I was pretty pleased with myself, to be honest. I had three small children at home, and I was able to earn a very good living on 4 days a week, of mostly brainstorming, and then writing up and fleshing out these promotional concepts. It was a good gig, that also had perqs such as pizza, Nerf balls, Legos, and M&Ms. Plus, for the most part, brainstorming was fun for me.

Then I got the idea in my head that I should do more with my life than figure out a cool way for American Express to launch its new charge card, or Avon to do a celebrity video, or Burger King to increase traffic and sales. My kids were getting bigger, and I had a little bandwidth free up. 🙂

I wanted to write a book, that much was clear to me.

But like most people, I procrastinated. At least, that’s what I thought I was doing. And like most people I scolded myself for procrastinating. And then I had fears… 

What if I’m not a writer, at all?

Has anyone else had that gut-wrenching thought? It’s a painful thought, and it kept me stuck for some time. I’d lost confidence, and spent at least a year procrastinating to avoid that thought. 

I wasn’t actually procrastinating. I was stuck, and didn’t know how to get out of that stuck place (like Winnie-the-Pooh without Rabbit to consult.)

I hadn’t identified the right problem. I was working on other, inconsequential problems – like how to find time in my schedule, how to get myself to sit down and write, how organize my thoughts, how to get an agent, how to sell a book. These might seem like salient problems, but until I could get clarity on what and why I wanted to write, there wasn’t much point in sitting down, or finding an agent.

Meanwhile, every advice in the world said: Just do it. Or if you’re not doing it, you’re not a writer. Or preached discipline. And many of you reading this are chiming in, bec these tactics work for you. They don’t work for me. I could work for months on a great idea, only to give it up, and start on a new idea.

What I desperately needed to figure out is HOW TO CLARIFY my thoughts, and work on the right problem at the right time. (Again, many of you are good clarifiers and are saying “Duh…”) And before I could approach that problem I had to figure out:

What’s wrong with my brain?

I went for my Masters in Creativity. That’ll fix it. (And it did.) I learned that I was particularly, spectacularly bad at clarifying. (Remember, I’m spectacularly great at ideating, in case you’re judging me hard right now.) This diagnosis came from a creativity assessment called Foursight.

  • When I generate ideas, I’m having fun, and I have lots of energy.
  • When I have to clarify the problem, I slow down, feel sleepy, wanna quit. 
  • I have pretty even energy for developing ideas and implementing them.

I got this profile of how my creative thinking works (and sometimes doesn’t), and it was like a lightbulb was turned on in the attic of my brain. Being bad at clarifying wasn’t the end of the world, once you knew. When you know you can get help – either from someone else or by using a tool.

Not everything faced can be changed. But nothing changes if not faced. ~ James Baldwin

Once you know, you quit having that sinking feeling: what’s wrong with me? and do other people notice I’m bad at things they do easily? It frees your brain to think about other things like, what might be all the solutions to this clarifying problem? And I needed space to realize: I  must learn to clarify or none of my good ideas would come to fruition. 

My creative life and endeavors suddenly made sense too. I had jumped from idea to idea, bec ideas are fun and easy for me. I didn’t clarify what I wanted or what could go wrong, so my life stayed in a tailspin. I wasn’t putting down one idea, working it to completion, and then building on that. I wasn’t able to use my creativity to get me anywhere.

So, long story short, I learned to clarify. I learned tools that made my sluggish brain able to approach this problem with more confidence and better energy. My ideas got sorted, vetted, and chosen, based on an overarching criteria that I had thought through with my creative brain, just starting to take its first baby steps in clarifying.  

I share this story, bec I think…

…a lot of creative people are struggling, and bec they don’t know what to call it, they call it procrastinating, beat themselves up, and don’t write.

Is your current struggle really “procrastination?” Hop on over to the FB Group – Write Without the Fight. This is the week we work together on our WRITE WITHOUT THE FIGHT 5-DAY CHALLENGE. Register for the challenge for reminders and worksheets. Come see your blindspot, your strengths and struggles. Come learn about your kooky, brilliant creative brain and how it works (and sometimes doesn’t.)