08 Dec Siding with Your Creative Self
How to Leave the Ego’s World, and Enter the Metaphysical and Spiritual to Create Daily No Matter How Tired, Sleepy, and Hungry You May Feel
If you haven’t yet noticed, there has been a constant war for ages between the two life forces.
Our ego always seeks ease and comfort while our Creative Self craves to express itself with a sense of urgency and regularly.
- You may be an EARLY BIRD who gets up early to meditate, pray, write, paint, exercise, and so on before you start your day’s work.
- Or you may be a NIGHT OWL who stays late and refuses to go to sleep no matter how tired you may feel to feed your soul and allow your Creative Self to express Itself while everybody is asleep.
- Or you could be someone who has the habit of getting up early or staying late but without the discipline to unleash your creative genius on a consistent basis.
Let me ask you:
- Are you someone who goes the extra mile, gets up early or stays late, and then feeds and unleashes your soul?
- What approaches have you been using to sit still, ignore the noise, stay calm, and meditate regularly?
- How do you leave the popular and tap into the UNFAMILIAR and UNKNOWN to bring fresh, ‘out of this world’ creative ideas and products constantly?
- What enabled you to remain mindful, thoughtful, and CONSTANTLY CREATE day in and day out, no matter how tired or sleepy you may feel?
I’m a morning person…
Unless I must drive out early to go somewhere or have a training or a coaching session with clients in other time zones, I ATTEND to the needs of my soul, READ, and WRITE daily before I do anything else.
Each time I sit down, I try my best to DIVE inside, liberate my Creative Self, get in touch with my soul, and GROW on a consistent basis.
By doing so, I evolve consistently and become a better writer, entrepreneur, and leader serving my audience and clients with world-class excellence. I could also handle stress and pressure, and treat others better the whole day…
Here is one question I keep on getting from friends and colleagues: “Where do you get enough time to write books, produce programs, and do many other stuffs?”
Of course, that isn’t what they’re asking. They already know I only have 24 hours like everybody else. The real question is: “How do you keep on producing without ceasing?”
It is flattering to get such compliments in this highly distractive social media era.
However, my answer doesn’t satisfy many.
I don’t talk about a shortcut or a mysterious drink or a steroid, or smoke that I use to discipline myself and grind in and out of season, no matter how tired or weak or tempted I may sometimes feel.
You too may not be impressed by my approach. It may appear too ordinary and simplistic…
Isn’t it paradoxical? Most principles and solutions to complex problems are simple.
If you’re still humble enough to listen to what I’ve to say, here is what I learned some years back: There is an unceasing fight between the ego and the Creative Self.
Here are some truths to be aware of. The ego is:
- Very close to our body and attached to its history,
- Bound by time and space,
- Temporal,
- Emotional,
- Selfish, and
- Short-sighted.
On the other hand, our Creative Self:
- Serves the Soul’s needs and assignment,
- Operates outside of time and space,
- Eternal,
- Patient,
- Loving, Nobel and Altruistic, and
- Far-sighted.
As a result, the ego wins- with little effort- most of the fights in the natural against the REAL thing- Your Highest Self, which lives in the supernatural.
The ego takes this advantage in the temporal world and prevents us from unleashing our inner Creative Self to express itself consistently.
It isn’t YOUR FAULT if you keep struggling to meet the needs and self-expression of your soul on a consistent basis.
I’m cognizant of the fact that it isn’t easy to subdue the ego and live up to the desires of your Creative Self. If it was, everybody would have done it, and our lives, careers, organizations, and communities wouldn’t have been where we’re today…
We’ll always find pretexts not to leave the ego world of superficiality. Many of these excuses look and seem legitimate, at least, to us at that moment.
It takes leaving the familiar into the unknown more frequently if our desire is to bring forth fresh, deep, and extraordinary thoughts, ideas, solutions, and products on a consistent basis. It takes ignoring what is noisy and popular to avoid being a phony or a one-time wonder artist, writer, hero, and so on.
Unfortunately, many people side with the ego and refrain from sitting down to meditate, pray, reflect, paint, or write as regularly as possible, and pay dire prices…
Once I realized the fight and how the ego was winning most of the time, I decided to side with my Creative Self to give it a fair chance of winning.
Initially, I listened to some experts and their complex advice, many of which didn’t work at all. A few worked for a while but didn’t sustain. Some of these approaches were tedious and boring too.
Finally, I got a revelation- a seemingly simple and easy approach. I tried it a couple of times, and it kept working. And I’m here to share it with you!
Do you want to know about it?
Here you go… I downplayed the ego’s barrage of pretexts. I resisted its unceasing nagging and kept SITTING DOWN.
The reaction of the ego? It fought for the first few minutes. Once my Creative Self took over, it took the back seat and stayed quiet and helpless.
My Creative Self? It had a field day during those early days when I was testing and practicing.
Seeing the magnificent change in my mood, confidence, certainty, and creativity I was experiencing, I vowed to discipline myself and make it a habit.
My role? Simple! Forcing my body to sit down while ignoring my ego’s insistence not to do it.
My growth accelerated, clarity abound, and great things begin to happen within…
I kept getting fresh understandings and revelations concerning many of the tough questions I had for many years.
Fresh and innovative ideas, thoughts, and concepts began flowing so easily and effortlessly.
What is ironic? I was that guy who struggled to discipline myself to just sit for a few minutes and enter the unknown and the supernatural. Prior to developing the new productivity habit, yes, I got up early most of the time. But I directly went to the noisy and familiar world. Yes, I was busy strategizing, planning, and writing. Looking back retrospectively, the results I was going from those shallow exercises were too familiar and ordinary all the time with little depth and creativity.
Coming back to the early days. After a while, though the effectiveness and intensity varied from one day to another, I kept going. I got addicted to the experience and looked forward to it every day.
What about now, you may ask? Most of the time- as I meditate, reflect, visualize, or write- I find myself losing track of time.
In most cases, before I do sit, however, I may still not feel like doing it. Sometimes, I may even feel too tired, sleepy, hungry, and so on.
Once I sat down, nonetheless, I don’t even want to get up at all, let alone eat. Because of other commitments such as going to the gym or having my first meal, making a call, facilitating a webinar, and so on, I halt the silence. I break the fast from distractions, worries, superficiality, and so on. I hate to do it. But I must disrupt the flow. It is called life…
Here is a tough problem for many people. You could be one of them. I was. The fight from the ego doesn’t cease even if you master taming the ego and unchaining your Highest Self. You’ve to keep your vow and renew your commitment daily. This means you need to DOMESTICATE the ego every day.
This is regardless of knowing that I was going to enjoy the experience and wouldn’t regret sitting down, the ego fought me every time.
The ego desires to get temporary pleasures and immediate gratifications all day long, and as many as possible without ceasing, if we allow it.
By the way, I’m one of those believers who is convinced that we’ve ego for a reason and for our own benefit. We don’t need to kill or disown it. We just need to evolve it so that it keeps serving the greater good and aligns with the needs, aspirations, and assignments of our Highest Selves.
How is your experience? Are you fighting for your Creative Self? Are you taking a side with your Creative Self?
If you’re not, let me share with you what Les Brown, one of my favorite motivational speakers said: “Life is a fight for territory, if you don’t fight for what you want, what you don’t want takes over.” If you don’t fight for the causes of your Creative Self, the ego wins every time and takes over.
For your information, the primary purpose of this blog is to encourage you to side with your soul and help It express itself. This habit is beneficiary to increase your self-awareness plus it positions you to excel in other aspects of your life and beyond.
In all my books, self-awareness has a big place. For that matter, in my book Soft Skills That Make or Break Your Success, the first soft skill out of twelve is increasing self-awareness.
The implication of self-awareness is vast and deep. It doesn’t stop at you. Almost all leadership experts agree that leadership begins with self.
But one cannot lead oneself successfully if they don’t have personal mastery. They cannot master what they’re not aware of. What is more? If they struggle leading themselves, they cannot lead others effectively…
As you can see, self-awareness is a solid foundation we need if our desire is to grow, evolve, become better, and serve others with world-class excellence. We need it to excel in our personal life, profession, business, leadership, and beyond.
Then, what better, sure, and sustainable way than carving out time, whatsoever tired and sleepy we may feel, to set aside even if it is a few minutes to invest in ourselves, free our Creative Self, and in the process increase our self-awareness?
Warning! Like any other habit, however, it may become a little harder to win over the ego for the first couple of weeks. It may keep winning some of the time. When that happens, don’t give up. Even if you are sitting just for a few minutes, just do it. After a while, you begin to stay longer. Without knowing, not only do you stay longer, but you also go deeper and wider. Side with your creative self no matter what!
Please note that siding with your Creative Self and disciplining your body and ego to sit down is a critical first and fundamental step. But if you want to be a pro, you need to develop certain skills.
For instance, if you desire to become a creative writer and storyteller, there are certain competencies you need to develop over time. We, at Success Pathways, provide consulting services to support new authors who would like to become bestsellers such as how to:
- Choose a catchy title and subtitle
- Copywrite SEO-friendly description of the book
- Use some tools to outline, draft, and edit the manuscript
- Market, promote, publish, and distribute the book…
If you desire to meditate and stay mindful throughout the day, there are certain skills that you need to develop. For example, we provide a mindfulness program that teaches how to:
- Slow down your brain wavelength, stop worrying, and analyzing, but rather cool down your brain to leave the natural world where ego rules
- Enter the metaphysical and the spiritual worlds where your Creative Self awakens and flourishes
- Use some strategies and tactics that enable you to beat distractions and get focused
- Stay mindful throughout the day, regardless of the pressure you may face and how stressful the environment you may be working in
Keep siding with your Creative Self on a daily basis! It has huge individual and corporate rewards now and in the long run.
Once you rewire your brain and create new neural paths, and your genetic code is reconfigured in your Creative Self’s favor, you don’t need to resist, make lots of effort and invest tons of energy to enter into this state of creativity, joy, and bliss daily.
It becomes your second nature. You cannot live without it…
Once you learn how to ‘leave’ the world of the ego and ‘enter’ the metaphysical and spiritual, even for a few minutes daily, you make a paradigm shift and begin to experience extraordinary transformation. You’ll be a totally new person. You’ll be ‘born again’.
Feel free to reach out via i[email protected] for any questions, or if you need our help to empower your people to tap into their inner Selves, innovate, keep a work-life balance, and grow spiritually on a consistent basis. And in turn, improve their well-being, increase productivity, manage stress well, solve problems creatively, turn conflicts into opportunities better, and more…