One of the most common laments I hear from Reinventers is that they know they need to reinvent but they don’t know what they really want.

I’m here to tell you that you do know what you want. The rub is that you may not be able to access it easily. But it is there, inside of you, waiting…..patiently or maybe not so patiently.

Most have been talked out of wanting what we want:
• it isn’t responsible
• it isn’t realistic
• it may not even be possible
• we don’t know how to do it

So we begin to talk ourselves out of what we want.

It starts with an internal nudge, usually in the form of a spirited part of us that whispers “What if?” or “That would be fun!”

Example: I have a corporate job that I know isn’t me. I’m making good money, but I can hardly make myself get up and go to work any more. One day while I am dragging myself into the building where I work, a flash occurs to me. “I would really love to make jewelry.”

The thought has hardly seen the light of day when I start the second guessing it.

Which is easy to do, because it is like a new sprout of growth. It doesn’t have a deep root system yet.

“That doesn’t make any sense.”

“That’s crazy. How could I make any money?”

“How could that possibly fit with the rest of my life?!”

So I let it go and chalk it up to a moment of temporary insanity.

And along with it, I bury the creative spirit of exploration that came with it. A pretty high price, especially when you consider the cumulative effect of multiple burials like that.

Most of us get a nudge like that and kill it before we even give it a chance to teach us something about what we want and where we want to go.

In that example, I jumped many steps down the path and decided that it was unrealistic, before I even took the first step. Before I even explored the idea!

What if we allowed an internal nudge like that to have some space? What if we played with it in our minds, dreamed about what it would be like? Gave it some room to breathe in our hearts? Before we expected ourselves to take action on it.

The next time you get a flash of intuition, a desire that surprises you, explore it in your imagination. What is it that would be fun about it? What appeals to you about it? What does it feel like when you think about it? What does it awaken in you that hasn’t had room for expression for a while?

As best you can, let the judgement go and give yourself permission to explore the “What if?”.

Be a detective. Discover the clues about yourself, about what you want, and where you might want to take your life or your work. It is a process much like putting a jigsaw puzzle together. You get a lot of pieces, and at first you don’t know how they will fit together.

Does a nudge like that mean I really want to be a jewelry creator? Not necessarily, but it does probably mean that there is a nugget of what I do want in there somewhere, because it came in on the ‘intuitive channel’. Too early to tell exactly what that is without further exploration of the idea.

I may be craving more time and space to create. I may love color and form. I may feel a sense of freedom in making jewelry that is essential to me, but isn’t part of the rest of my life.

Also, very important: when you are genuinely curious about an idea, the next action will probably ‘pop’ in through your ‘intuitive channel’ also, if you give it room to come.

Be willing to be surprised about that too. It may not be what you think it will be. It may not ‘make sense’. Maybe it isn’t to sign up for a jewelry class right now. Maybe it is to get to know a jewelry artist. Or to go to a gallery and immerse yourself in the jewelry. Maybe it is to draw or paint.

Be willing to know just the next step, too, not the whole path. This is how these ideas emerge in us. We take the first exploratory step and see where that leads us. Life gives us feedback and guides us on our way.

Follow those nudges. Honor them. Respect them. Give them room to develop. Discover their clues.

They will become stronger. Your trust in them will become stronger.

Before you know it, you will be on the path of reinvention, guided step-by-step by your inner compass. Which is, after all, the whole point of a reinvention, isn’t it?

START HERE:

Action: Record any flashes of desire that come to you. Don’t dismiss them or judge them. Play with them. When the inspiration for a first step occurs to you, act on it.

Insight: Ask yourself those questions above. Be a detective, and discover the nugget at the core of the idea. Have fun with the exploration.

Filed under: Your Map, Your Compass on February 28th, 2007