3 things to remember when making a leap of faith
Old story: Imagine you’ve spent your life eating peanuts. You like peanuts. They’re nutritious. They satisfy your hunger. Then one day someone offers you a steak. The only way to get the steak, however, is to drop the handful of peanuts. Dropping those nuts is an act of faith because, for a moment, your hands are empty.*
For a moment, your hands are empty. Several weeks ago I wrote about the art of letting go of that which no longer serves us in order to make room for the new. What I failed to add is that while it’s easy to drop a handful of peanuts when we can see that steak hovering just inches away; it’s deadly difficult to let go when we have no clear vision of when (or if) our hands will be full again. That’s when letting go requires bravery—an act undertaken on blind trust that somehow, someday we’ll again be fed. And so we leap, we take that first step, and then we listen and we wait.
First steps can be difficult. In any creative effort, we move into decisions with no clear vision of the future and our choice to go forward is an act of faith. Sometimes, as was graphically depicted in the old movie Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, we can’t see the path until we take that first step. Most of the time, even when we think we know the destination, the journey takes us to completely different and unexpected locations than we anticipated. Our job is to trust the path and let it lead us exactly where we’re supposed to go (even if we didn’t know that’s where we needed to be).
It’s all about trusting our creative vision. I’d like to say that a lifetime in the arts has given me the confidence to stride forth when I can’t see the path ahead, but I (like many others) still hesitate when the path is uncertain or (at times) nearly invisible. I want assured success; I want to know that my efforts will be rewarded. Underneath all of that, I’m doubting my right to share my creative vision with others. That’s when I have to step back and remind myself of these three things:
It’s OK to fail
The most rewarding relationships and creative efforts of my life have sprung from the ashes of failure. Failure is never fun, but there’s a reason why experts advise us to “fail early, fail often, fail well.” Failing well means learning from what didn’t work, applying those lessons to our lives, and using the failure to hone our vision. Sometimes the biggest gift we can receive is knowing what doesn’t work because it frees us to find what does.
It’s OK to change our minds
Creativity isn’t a fixed position. Creative people understand this and we learn to shut out the voices of non-creatives who view change as a character flaw. Nothing in life stays static, and refusing to grow and change stunts us as artists and human beings. After all, as George Bernard Shaw once famously stated, “Progress is impossible without change; those who cannot change their minds cannot change anything.”
It’s OK to share our creative brainchildren with others
Will others always appreciate what we create? No. Will it always be brilliant and perfect? Probably not. Will we be shielded from criticism and judgment? Absolutely not! But as artists, we must transcend the words of naysayers and our own feelings of inadequacies and dare to share our creative efforts with others. For, as author Marianne Williamson so eloquently stated:
“Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, 'Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous?' Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It's not just in some of us; it's in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.”
*Gratitude to harpsichordist/pianist/educator Peter Brownlee for telling me this story decades ago.