I am inspired this week by a quote I saw on Facebook –
“Life isn’t about finding yourself; it’s about creating yourself.”
This resonates so deeply with me both in terms of leadership development and finding balance in our lives. In fact, soon you will see the evolution of Glow – a new look to the site and a new tag line; “Creating Meaningful Balance.”
The definition of “Create” that I like the best is: “to produce through artistic or imaginative effort.”
As someone that has the privilege of being surrounded by many artistic people in my life, I know that I am not creative in an artistic form. However, I have come to learn that my creativity lives in the realm of “imaginative effort;” ideas or problem solving. The key take away here is that we are all creative. We may not be throwing together the Mona Lisa or coming up with fabulous out of the box ideas, but each and every one of us has the ability to create. Most importantly we have the ability to create ourselves as highly effective leaders and to create balance and meaning in our lives.
Working with leaders every day I often bump up against, “yeah but I am not creative.” Where does that come from? It comes from comparing. I look at my daughter and how she can spend half the day finding and producing crafts from Pinterest or my friend Scarlett Ballantyne who I refer to as a Creative Goddess –www.scarlettballantyne.com. She can put together the most inspired and beautiful room, outfit or face you have ever seen! If I compare myself to these people, clearly I will see myself as not creative. The truth is – I am. Although I am not artistic, I can apply imaginative effort to create the life I want.
To create the life we want, to be great leaders, to have a life with balance and meaning, we need to use our imaginations – think and then develop action steps to bring our creation to life – effort.
In North America we are so busy running around from work to the many activities we have in our lives. We are followers. We look at what everyone else does and unconsciously follow. We fool ourselves into believing everyone else must be right.
In the world of leadership development there are thousands of books on the topic of leadership. Companies develop competencies for what they want their leaders to look and act like. In my opinion, this develops” leadership zombies.” Then they question, “why are we lacking in innovation?” Everyone is looking to a source outside of themselves to know how to be better leaders.
Following is easy. It takes less effort and not a lot of thought. But the reality is, the result in most cases is less than dazzling!
I challenge you to embrace your creativity. Your ability to consciously think and then apply action. To be an exceptional leader or to find balance and meaning in your life – stop following! Go within and create.