Читать книгу How to Have Kick-Ass Ideas: Get Curious, Get Adventurous, Get Creative - Chris Barez-Brown, Крис Барез-Браун - Страница 7

The only problem was that I had no idea how to tackle the huge question: ‘What Next?’. It was such a broad question that my mind just boggled. I needed a process, an approach that would help provide me with meaning.

By reading lots of personal development books, trying out creative exercises and experimenting with anybody fool enough to fall for my generous drink buying, I started to create that process. The first stage was to explore what my opportunity really was. By doing so I could then chunk it down into manageable parts that I could then get my head around, areas that I could focus on and create ideas for. I then found that certain exercises assisted me in breaking out of my usual, set way of thinking. This new approach helped me create ideas and potential solutions that were inspiring but also truly connected to who I really am and what makes me tick. Then all I had to do was to come up with a plan to make them happen, which actually turned out to be really easy – once I had found something I was excited about.

This process was incredibly exploratory. The more playful I became, the more opportunities arose. I realized that while the process was enormously valuable, it was the way I approached it that was key to making it work. As time, space and focus worked their magic, I learnt a lot about myself and some of my personal beliefs with regard to how my life ‘should’ be. It turned out it was these beliefs that were keeping me stuck.

Up until that moment, my career and my life’s focus had essentially been fun and rewarding, but it always felt as if I was doing one thing to achieve another: getting promoted in order to build a really significant profile at work, so making me able to create some heavy duty impact and so get a really big job …

I came to understand that deep in my subconscious there was a belief that by following all these stages eventually I would achieve some sort of Nirvana, an ultimate life state, a place where I could be happy. There would come a time when I had achieved the next big goal and horns would sound, fireworks explode, and the wise and the beautiful of the world would surround me saying: ‘Chris, you’ve done it! Stop that toiling, it’s now time to party. Enjoy life, the rest of it is yours.’

I know this may all sound ridiculous, but is this belief really so foreign to you? Whether it’s getting the next promotion, buying a house in the country, waiting for the kids to grow up so you can travel or just getting a bit more cash in the bank; we all mortgage our happiness. It was for that very reason that I wasn’t doing something that I loved, and that was what had started the itch.

When I was travelling, tomorrow didn’t exist. I wasn’t working towards anything. There was only the present. If I had become attached to an output there would always have been the chance of disappointment. For example, if I was planning a trip out on a boat and all I imagined was calm seas and clear blue skies, then I would only have been happy if nature provided those precise conditions. But as we all know the beauty of being alive is that we cannot predict the future. I learnt that by all means I should make a plan, but then I must let go of it, detach and see what happens. I soon discovered that when the bus didn’t show, the heavens opened and there was no room in the inn, I would often have a much more fulfilling and adventurous day than when it went like clockwork.

When travelling, I remembered what it was like to enjoy every day regardless of the weather, the reliability of the buses or the lack of dry places to rest my head. Every day became an adventure and the less attached I became to an outcome, the more fun I had. It was a wonderful game. What I realized was that back home, life hadn’t felt like a game for some time. I was taking it all too seriously. And, worst of all, I was taking myself too seriously. I now knew that any opportunities that I wanted to take had to be as much for the moment as for where they might possibly take me.