Questions often fuel my personal and professional development. Can creativity and discipline co-exist, I wonder?
For me, it’s more than a random thought. Creatives are often perceived as lacking discipline. And routines, often associated with discipline, are often considered a block to creative flow. So, can a successful creator be fully expressed in creativity while maintaining discipline?
For many years my personal mission has been to present my most authentic self to the world each and every day. My authentic self is my most creative self, and yet, seemingly in contradiction, I was a highly successful operations manager who is now committed to life as a creative entrepreneur business and life coach, consultant and facilitator.
Early in my coaching career, as I counted my blessings in 2008 and set goals for 2009 I kept hearing this question:
“How do I honor and integrate my creative side with the discipline I know it takes to grow a small business and to lead a fulfilled and happy life?”
As a result, I wondered, “How can I help the passionate women I know to answer the same question regarding creativity and discipline?”
One thing is very clear. The word disciplined does not typically make the list of words anyone would use to describe me. Self-discovery, for me, is all about creating, allowing, and exploring in a pure, natural flow. Professionally, I support current management philosophies that encourage the creative process in problem-solving. I engage in deliberate play, too!
I explore myself each day by writing in a journal and sometimes sketching in it. I even scribble! So, if I commit to that activity each day, isn’t that a routine, even if I don’t do it at exactly 7 am each morning? Doesn’t that take discipline? Isn’t that an example of the co-existence of the two values?
And, doesn’t writing engage my creativity?
If I ask myself two simple questions each day, without fail, and focus on the answers, doesn’t that take discipline, too?
In my ongoing practice of self-discovery I have learned to uncover limiting beliefs. Certainly, identifying myself as not having discipline is one of those limiting beliefs.
So, what is this thing, called discipline, I don’t think I have, anyway?
Dictionary.net gave me these clues:
1. Subjection to rule; submissiveness to order and control; habit of obedience.
Now I see why this word evokes some repulsion.
Rules, submissiveness, control, and obedience these words are the epitome of anti-creative and do nothing to support imagination, inspiration and innovation, signature traits of the entrepreneurial spirit.
Still, aren’t the best leaders those that think outside the box, sometimes bending the rules? Don’t those leaders require more creativity than discipline?
Certainly, being submissive never got anyone recognized for his or her contribution to an organization.
Aren’t most breakthroughs born of some form of disobedience?
But as I read on, this came next:
2. To accustom to regular and systematic action; to bring under control so as to act systematically; to train to act together under orders; to teach subordination to; to form a habit of obedience in; to drill.
Ok, so the obedience thing still makes me tense, but now I’m getting closer to a definition I can appreciate and embrace to accustom to regular and systematic action; to bring under control as to act systematically.
And then:
Discipline aims at the removal of bad habits and the substitution of good ones, especially those of order, regularity, and obedience. – C. J. Smith.
Now I get it! Being a creative soul does not require me to live in chaos!
Order and regularity can be the foundation for the serenity that provides me the freedom to create. Out of simple systematic processes will come the moments of inspiration that are the new programs of my future.
Simple, regular, disciplined actions taken will propel me toward my vision and intentions (aka goals).
I will grow a successful small business teaching others how to integrate simple, disciplined processes into their lives, so that their creativity will flourish and allow them to grow, too.
I engage my creative side, playing regularly with re-use materials for mixed media projects. I arranged my workspace to support my visual inspiration. And to support my ideal life with new, consistent habits I developed a framework process I use and teach to my coaching clients. That framework makes it possible for me to create with freedom and flexibility while maintaining deliberate movement toward project completion.
So, do creativity and discipline co-exist in your life? Share your thoughts with me. I’d love to hear them.
In the spirit of wisdom, wellness, and prosperity.
Nanette