Creativity is simultaneously inhibited and reinforced with stress. Stress is one of those things that I struggle with on a very deep level. In fact, stress is something that affects me deeper than I like to admit. When I first think about stress, I have this constricting feeling, a feeling that makes me want to hide from the challenge out of fear. I can’t tell you the amount of times that I have curled up under my desk, fetal position, shaking, and crying with the fear related to my stress. I think the craziest part, I used to think that this was just “part of the process.” While it may be something that many people deal with, it doesn’t have to be something that needs to be endured. The stressful moments in life, and the way that we take on our fears, often lead to the biggest breakthroughs. And that is probably one of the hardest things to distinguish, when stress is valuable to growth, and when stress is detrimental to reaching a more creative state.
In conversations that I have had with fellow founders, executives, and other creative entrepreneurs, the most valuable piece of advice that seems to be consistent is to “trust your gut.” I wasn’t always the best at this step. Early in my career, I wanted to achieve the highest level as quickly as possible. To stand on that stage, accept the award, and know that I had “made it.” To me, that was the best way to feel fulfilled in the creative work that I was doing. Reflecting now, that ego driven mindset did quite the opposite of moving me in the right direction. Every time my gut said that I should go the other direction, I ignored it in pursuit of growth towards my goals. It usually ended in not just a failure, but it was accompanied by the feeling that I should have trusted my gut. However, there is a fine line between trusting your gut and the fear response that is related to taking a risk.
This line is difficult to walk. I remember this pretty significant moment in my career where this came up and I couldn’t really tell the difference. I had been running a creative agency for quite a few years. It had found success but I found myself wanting to jump into a new venture. There was, of course, the prospect of success, something new, and the true need that was present in the market. But in order for me to pursue it, I had to close the company that I had worked so hard to build, effectively begin working for a company that I didn’t own completely, and trust my gut that it was going to be ok. I had about a week to make a decision as to what I was going to do.
It was an all out identity crisis. I felt trapped in the middle between something exciting and risky, and something safe and controlled. I wrote on pieces of paper the pros and the cons, discussed it with many people close to me, and still couldn’t come to a decision. Logically, it made sense to pursue the new company from just about every angle. Every angle except for the safety net if it went sideways. I had always had some sort of backup plan and this was the first time that I would have to risk it all for something that I was uncertain about. But that last part, while factual, is more of the gut feeling. It’s that voice in the back of your head that says, “Woahhhhhhh. Hold on just a sec and think about this. Are you positive?”
This type of emotion can come up in just about anything in life. It’s the decision to cook the pasta just a minute longer even though it just might overcook it. It’s the decision to run the extra mile, despite knowing that you will feel more sore the next day, but knowing that it would lead to satisfaction. But for some reason, when it is a big decision, a potential life changing decision, the weight suddenly becomes extremely difficult to carry. Looking back, while I totally understand the apprehension, I have to ask myself, “Why?” It really is just another simple decision that has to be made. Rather than approaching it as a life or death decision, it simply is a decision that can lead me down a new path; a path that I may not know where it ends but we can never know what the future holds. There is so much time we spend on trying to control our future and tiptoeing over each decision to craft the “perfect” life. But the messiness of life is what makes it truly beautiful.
After about a week of being on the fence about what to do, I began to feel the stress of the timeline closing in to make a decision. The gut began to speak louder to me. It said that if I didn’t go for something, I would inevitably regret not giving it a shot. No amount of logic could down out this type of feeling. Ultimately, I decided to pursue the new venture, close the old one, and take the leap. The moment when I decided to do it was a relief. I could feel my stomach calm, my mind quiet, and there was this moment of peace, knowing that I had made the right choice for me. But after everything settled, the excitement of the new decision became a reality, I realized that all I had really done is choose one thing over another, a process that happens hundreds of times per day. Suddenly, the decision didn’t seem as big as it did at the time. But I was happy I trusted my gut.
This doesn’t mean that I am perfect at the process. There are many times where I still make the logical decision versus trusting my gut. But as with anything else that we aim to improve at, practice is needed. So I practice, each and every day. The big decisions, the small decisions, all of them are little moments to try out trusting my gut. I don’t want to say that the process eventually becomes “mindless” because there is always a logical piece to a decision. However, it helps simplify and reframe some of the decisions that I make and I find myself not spending as much time considering what the “right” decision is. There is absolutely no way we can always be right or that we can know what the outcome of a decision will be. So why spend the effort trying to play out all the scenarios? The amount of time it takes to consider all outcomes is the same amount of time it usually takes to start experiencing something new. And experience is the best teacher of all.
My best advice to others is to go experience as much as possible. I’ve been reflecting a lot about the people that I have respected most in my life. Most of them are people that I have known and some of them are ones that I don’t. One of the things that I realized is that each every one of them made swift decisions and rode the wave of the decision knowing that any outcome would be better than no outcome at all. And in all of the stories, whenever the word regret is mentioned, there is always a sense of wisdom and gratitude from the lesson learned that they carried with them for the rest of their life. Arguably, the “bad” decisions ended up being good decisions. It is merely how you frame it in your mind. So don’t hesitate, make that decision, and catch the wave.