All Coursed up and nowhere to go

Nobody puts Baby in a corner, and nobody puts you in a box. Truthfully, I loathe boxes. They cut off connection and creativity and drain the sweet nectar of life dry as an Arizona creek bed in July.

The only trouble is, boxes are everywhere.

‘Just follow my 7 step plan and you’ll be [insert desire] (skinny, rich, rolling in clients, financially freeeee, in looooove)’

Sound familiar?

The box has taken on softer walls in recent days—‘Learn my process, my framework, my method and all your dreams will come true’.

And, in total transparency, I will tell you I’ve taken a lot of courses, hell I’ve written courses, frameworks and templates, and they have their place.

There is a place for information.

Ideas are good. Concepts are important. Understanding them is crucial.

But the implementation of these principles is not prescribed.

If a recommended process makes you shrink, disconnect or in any way feel confined, flip that bitch on its head and make it your own.

Use your divinely bestowed creativity to create a process that works for you.

Because while the concept may be universal, the execution in no way has to be, and that’s where we hogtie ourselves instead of moving forward.

It’s the difference between looking up a recipe for spaghetti sauce and following it to the letter, and taking the recipe as a suggestion—adding, subtracting and cooking by your creativity.

There are certain things that work really well and are worth keeping, like browning the meat in milk before adding it to the sauce, and others that don’t matter, like sautéing the onions and garlic before adding the carrots.

This flawed ‘there’s a singular path to success’ approach is especially rampant in business. For example, everybody knows you’ve got to identify your target market, your ideal client, the person who’s going to buy your stuff.

That clarity is very important, otherwise your message is all over bedlam and you’re asking people to connect the dots from Shanghai to Nairobi, and they’ll probably bail somewhere over Bangladesh which does not bode well for your business.

Knowing who this person is is integral to your business’ success.

Howevah, the ways (yes multiple) I’ve been prompted to define this person have felt like sucking down soapy water.

I’ve always choked on it.

So instead, I chose a different process, one that piqued my creativity, lit my interest and allowed the muse to flow through me, connection to bloom and the answers to surface without me dredging the lake.

That process looked like this: I decided I would have a conversation with this client, and I would write it out without thinking, analyzing or otherwise inviting mindfuckery into the mix.

It worked like a treat, I loved writing it and I’ve since been able to answer far more specific questions because I’ve already met this person and the clarity is singing.

Which is what you want.

If you want to see what this process and result looks like, read it here. Model it if it feels like something that’d be fun for you.

The point is, just because something worked a certain way for someone else, does not mean that’s the exact way it’ll work for you (in fact, if someone tells you to follow their exact process please run).

Don’t be afraid to use your creativity to make accomplishing things easier for you. I promise you it’ll be more fun if you do.

Love and doing it your way,

PS—If you do follow that method, would you share your conversations with me? I’d love to read them.