Creativity takes Courage

With anxiety on the rise globally, many of us are raising awareness about mental well-being. It’s fitting to explore the challenges that can block our creative flow, because let’s face it, creativity takes courage and perseverance! When we translate those sparks of inspiration into reality, we’re venturing into the unknown. Obstacles are inevitable, and sometimes our inner critic can be the biggest hurdle, sapping our creative mojo before we even get started, (and sometimes before we finish).

True Confessions

I tend to be a procrastinator whenever I start something new and important. It’s almost as if I’ve got to build up steam to get into the energy of creativity and production. The story I have told myself is that my urge to clean up or get busy doing anything else that suddenly seems important is— that this is productive. Procrastination helps me create order and prime the canvas of my mind for doing deep work. (I still need to get primed, but there are other ways to achieve this.)

Further, I’ve used stress and anxiety as fuel for creativity and perfectionism to get better at crafting anything involving performance, be it art, design, consulting, speaking etc.. You get the picture. But… Like so many people since Covid, I have suffered from more stress, and anxiety than what is “normal” for me and noticed my tendency for procrastination and perfectionism was getting out of hand. All of this was giving me insomnia.

Last winter I embarked on a journey to develop my mental fitness by cultivating Positive Intelligence ® (PQ®). It has helped me enormously in terms of enhanced health, better sleep, and heightened performance as a consultant, coach, and educator. I have more energy, clarity of mind, and more ease and flow, as a result of my training.

Of course, this didn’t happen all at once, but incrementally through developing a daily habit of brain “muscle building” that takes a few minutes a day, aided by an app that measures my progress. Studies have shown mental fitness changes grey matter in your brain! I love the program so much, that I trained with Shirzad Chamine, PQ’s founder, to become a PQ® mental fitness coach, so I can help you! Especially in the realm of leadership, creativity and innovation.

Understanding Your Inner Judge and Inner Sage

Saboteurs are the voices in your head that generate negative emotions as you handle life’s everyday challenges. They represent the automatic patterns in your mind for how to think, feel, and respond. Your Saboteurs cause all of your stress, anxiety, self-doubt, frustration, restlessness, and unhappiness. They sabotage your performance, well-being, and relationships.

Recognize the signs: procrastination, hyper-rationality, avoidance, restlessness, and perfectionism signal the voices of your inner Judge and Saboteurs obstructing your path. They reside in the survival part of your brain, generating negative emotions.

Your Saboteurs aim to shoot down your ideas and foster self-doubt. On the flip side, your inner Sage dwells in the “thrive” region, generating positive emotions and guiding you towards optimal solutions with ease and flow. It fosters empathy, exploration, discovery, creativity, and innovation. To really lead and innovate you have to be in Sage mode, and that takes practice.

The Power of Positive Intelligence

As the great Stoic Marcus Aurelius said, “The impediment to action advances action. What stands in the way becomes the way.” PQ equips us to manage mental and emotional energy effectively, boosting self-confidence and fostering innovative thinking. It’s about unlocking our full creative potential and embracing setbacks as opportunities for growth.

Unlock Your Creativity

The Saboteur Assessment is your first step to conquering your Saboteurs — identifying them to expose their lies and limiting beliefs. Learn the 9 ways we self-sabotage, based on Shirzad Chamine’s New York Times bestseller and Stanford lectures. The research includes insights from 500,000 participants, world-class athletes, and leaders from every Fortune 100 company.

Ready to unlock your full potential?  Imagine tackling challenges with a clear, focused mind, leading with creativity and innovation, and building stronger relationships. The PQ® Program can help you achieve this and more. Start your journey to mental fitness today! Click here to book a free consultation and take the quiz to gain insights into your Saboteurs and how they impact your life.