People sometimes get stuck trying to follow all the wisdom imparted by experts, supposed experts and those who are already working the way we want to work. They don’t want to fail, want to avoid the common mistakes and truly understand the best way of doing something, so they gather all of these opinions and experiences, then don’t know what to do. Between those who are truly trying to be helpful, those who want to sell you something, those who mean well, and those who want to be seen as an expert, all of the information can pile up so high and wide that it can cause people to freeze. Instead of being helpful all of this wisdom becomes overwhelming and causes self-doubt, second guessing, and frantic checking and re checking which becomes all-consuming. This added to the natural “stage fright” of doing something new sets us up to fail.
So then there are people who swing the pendulum completely to the other end of the spectrum. If you’re not going to follow tradition, not going to do things the way everyone else does them, and want to fire up your creativity, you should ignore everything and go completely in your own direction. Don’t over think it, don’t listen to anyone, be guided by your own inspiration and soul and let her rip. Don’t allow criticism stop you from doing what you are meant to do. Of course this also can stop us in our tracks because being responsible for everything from soup to nuts including figuring out how to do what we want to do from scratch, recreating the wheel, can be so mind-boggling, confusing, or just unknown and frightening that we don’t do it at all. It’s as if we’re a boat at see that has thrown away all navigation tools and can see no land and no stars. Without being able to determine what direction we’re in it can be hard to choose one to go in.
But these are extremes and life in all its varieties lives in between them. What usually works best is to make your own way. Listen to the common wisdom, try it out and see what happens. If it works for you, great. If not, then don’t assume there is a problem with you, see that the wisdom and you don’t work well together, thank it and set it aside. Listen to what your gut tells you, then act on it. Work from the inside out, looking for others that do it the way you are doing it and what their results are. That’s wisdom that could be very useful for you. Try, fail, and try again. On the journey between thought and completed project is the doing. Whether you succeed or fail will not be measured on a scale of whether you listened to the wisdom of others or of your inner spirit, but what you actually got done.
