Rejeuvenating Creative Energy and Willingness

Where Did My Willingness Go?

Lately, I’ve been feeling stuck.  I can’t seem to find my willingness to do the things I’ve agreed to do.  My pending to-do tasks are piling up and deadlines are boiling into urgency.

Something needs to shake loose soon, or I’ll be the one boiling in hot water.  So, I ask myself, “Why am I stalling as soon as I turn my attention to Getting Things Done?”; “Why are there some tasks that remain stubbornly as *to-do’s* and never seem to transform into *done*?”

Am I Allergic To Some Tasks?

I notice that there are whole categories of tasks that I tend to avoid, the way I avoid food that makes my stomach hurt. This makes me curious.  Why am I avoiding those types of chores?  Is it really that they are *toxic*?  Or is there something about the way I am thinking about them that is causing the nausea?  Perhaps what stumps my productivity, my willingness to do certain things, is not what I’m being asked to do, but who I imagine I must be in order to do the thing *right*. (1)

Channeling Creative Energy

Well, I have about three weeks worth of work to do in the next 5 days; so, I’m going to try an experiment.  I am going to turn my attention to the stomach-churners and ask myself the following Questions For Re-discovering Willingness:

• Is this my work?
  • Why is it (or not)?
  • How is it?
• What is the vision that fuels my willingness to do this?
• What story am I a part of when I do this?
  • Is that the story I want to inhabit?
  • Can I do this and inhabit my truth, or must I inhabit a role that is inauthentic?

These are not questions to answer.  They are questions to trigger observation and choice.

I am either going to have to meet my obligations or delegate the doing to someone who will meet them.  I must find the channel through which my creative energy will flow and support the doing or delegating; and I am fairly certain that I can only free my energy and willingness by harnessing the truth about myself in relation to the work.

Truth, in my experience, is not a conclusion one reaches; it is a question one explores – hence the energetic flow.

1.  Also, the story I am telling myself about why I am doing something needs to be carefully observed.  A false or destructive story can masquerade as imperative or healthy or wise . . . and can lead me seriously astray.  For example, I can believe that sending out a nasty-gram (hard-nosed, legally threatening letter) is going to make my client safer.  Close observation of the underlying story (that legal threats and sabre-rattling are powerful ways to force people to do what one wants) can reveal that the way I am going about ‘making things safe’ is actually more likely to trigger a destructive response (a reciprocal nasty-gram or even escalation to a lawsuit) or will foreclose an advantageous option (do damage to the relationship so that amicable, mutually beneficial resolution becomes impossible).