Dear Creativity,
Recently, I have been thinking about the choices I make. Every morning I wake up and head out for a morning walk around the neighborhood. I am a creature of habit and so I do the same 2-mile loop in the same direction every weekday. Occasionally, if I do the loop on the weekend, I will reverse the direction to keep my brain agile and not get too bogged down in my creature comforts. But, I digress.
During the summer there is a tree sap issue on part of the path. There are these trees in the local park that drip their sap on the sidewalk. I hate the feeling of the stickiness of the sap on my sneakers and don’t want to drag all the sticky into my home and didn’t want to let a little sap break my routine. So I hatched up a plan to step in the least sappy part of the paths to allow my sneaker to attach to the least amount of sap possible. Week after week, I sought to avoid as much sap as possible and then searched for water patches left by the morning sprinklers to rinse off my shoes as best as possible before stepping into my apartment and dropping them by the shoe bench at the door.
Then one day, I realized I had a choice of path in the area that was filled with the most sap of all. There was a path in the park that would bypass the ultimate sap pit and lower my distress about the sticky sneaker. Obviously, I was too busy trying to avoid the sap to realize that I had some choices when it came to the path I was walking. Creativity, I am realizing we always have a choice and this has me wondering…
How can we become more curious about our choices so that we can creatively design our lives in the present?
As I am thinking about a couple of scenarios over the past couple of weeks three strategies come to mind: practicing active decision-making, reframing obstacles as opportunities, and connecting our choices to our values.
Practice Decision-Making
First, we must actively engage in making choices rather than defaulting to habits. Recently I went to dinner with my husband at a restaurant that had two choices for an entrance. We entered at the back entrance which was near where we had our car. When we left, I decided to leave through the front entrance because I wanted to see if any of the restaurants or shops had changed and my husband used the back entrance because of his limited mobility. In the end, my taking a slightly longer route did not matter. Just like partnering with you Creativity, decision-making is a muscle that grows stronger with use. First, we must start by identifying areas in our lives where we tend to operate on autopilot. Then, consciously pause and consider your options. Even small decisions matter – choosing a different route for your walk, trying a new breakfast recipe, or reaching out to a friend you haven’t spoken to in a while. By regularly exercising our decision-making skills, we become more adept at recognizing and creating choices in all aspects of our lives, which helps us tap into our creativity faster over time.
Reframe Obstacles as Opportunities
Instead of viewing obstacles as roadblocks, we can view them as invitations to creative problem-solving. Remember my sticky shoe situation I mentioned earlier? When I finally slowed down enough to think of it as a problem I could solve creatively, a solution presented itself through a choice. When we encounter a difficulty, we can ask ourselves: “How can this challenge help me grow? What new skills might I develop by overcoming this?” This mindset turns every obstacle into a potential breakthrough. It transforms our daily lives from a series of problems to solve into an exciting journey of personal growth and innovation.
Connect Choices to Values
Lastly, and perhaps most importantly, we need to align our choices with our core values. When our decisions reflect what truly matters to us, we create a more meaningful and fulfilling life. The restaurant outing with my husband ended with a choice to take the highway(fast) or the side streets (slow). We decided to take the backgrounds so we could see what had changed and spend some quality time chatting and making connections through our connection with each other. Taking time to reflect on our fundamental beliefs and principles helps us to make daily choices that can better embody these values. This alignment brings a sense of purpose to even the smallest actions, ensuring that each choice contributes to the life we want to lead.
Designing our present through choices is about more than just making decisions. It’s about actively shaping our experiences, viewing challenges as opportunities for growth, and ensuring our actions align with our deepest values. By embracing these strategies, we transform our daily routines into a canvas for creativity and personal fulfillment.
Creativity, I like to think that if we make the choice today to be more conscious in our decision-making, more positive in our approach to challenges, and more aligned with our values in every action we take, we become the architects of our own experiences, crafting a life that is not just lived, but consciously created. And this is the way can continually partner with you to cultivate our creativity one choice at a time.
Innovatively yours,
Dr. Abigail
