By Sarah Gillen
Spring begins in March, 
right? C’mon, this is Vermont! Frost heaves, potholes, meteorological uncertainty. Will there be enough snow to sled on my daughter’s birthday, or will I have trouble making it through the mud to work? Are there enough wood pellets for the company heating system, or will the truck need an overhaul?
So much rumbling and lurching goes on this time of year. And yet, things seem to be revving up. Birds are returning, energy is stirring. Days seem lighter. Business leaders wonder if it’s time to invest in new products or hedge their bets. How do we deal with the slogging aspect of March when we wish we could burst forth into sun and success?
These liminal, transitional times can be a drag, or they can be most creative. It depends on our point of view. We can struggle and make them harder for ourselves, or we can explore the richness going on beneath the surface.
In nature, action is occurring behind the scenes. Roots have been growing all winter and are now interacting with bacteria to receive nourishment. Spores are developing. Stems and buds are building. Animals are mating and gestating. The same is true for our processes, whatever our goals. Transitional times are essential.
Change has been diagrammed by process observers like Prochaska. Creative processes have detailed stages to go through as well. In both, our western society emphasizes the action steps and places less value on the rumination, gestation, exploration, and making-a-mess-to-find-new-information stages that come before action, because they don’t seem directly to produce a product. Musers may be labeled day-dreamers and told to get back to work. Mess-makers are told to clean up their offices. But, without the behind-the-scenes stages, there is no creation.
Take a potter, for example. After finishing a body of work, he can’t immediately jump into another. First he has to mull, and research, and experience with eyes open and closed, until he has new inspiration. Then he has to explore the inklings, try things, muddle, scatter materials, so that aspects can combine to expose possibilities he didn’t foresee. Then he has to check his supplies, order new ones, grind colors, mix slip, try out different clays. Then he has to lay out all the items he needs, fix his wheel. Only now is he ready to begin to throw a pot.
All these steps occur mostly in private. If you stopped by his studio looking for ceramics, you’d be disappointed at his “lack of progress.” If you could see into his internal process though, you’d discover furious activity, just as there is in Nature during March.
In the same vein, business visionaries know that launching a new product takes more than making it and putting it on the shelves. All the musing and inspiration, market analysis, opportunity and competition analysis, financial effects and stresses computing, R & D, researching how it will fit with the company, cost analysis, finding producers and funding, designing, packaging, marketing strategies, staffing, and a thousand other factors must go on before the item ever sees the light of day.
These are the usual steps that an experienced executive knows. Yet there is another crucial facet to transitions. March has struggle in it. Even in other parts of the world, folks think that March winds roar “in like a lion and out like a lamb.” (They’d better count their blessings on the lamb part!) Where is the place in the creative process for the troubling winds, the mud, the uncertainty, the sliding into ditches, the trouble getting places, the tax prep, all the potholes of the season?
Transitions are marked practically always by upheaval – birth, death, birds flying south, beginning new projects, taking businesses to new levels. Transitions deal with the ending of one thing and the beginning of another. They have a tremendous amount going on during them, with much to be done to close out or start up each facet.
Transitions and creativity demand internal phases and external ones, a gathering in before a reaching out or moving forward. Muck and mire are not only inevitable, they are essential to the creation process. If we fight them, become too disgruntled and feel burdened, our path is more painful. If we can remember that they are inevitable and valuable, and we acquiesce a bit to the necessity of the slog, we’ll not only lower our stress levels, chances are we’ll engage with each task more easily and have more fruitful results.
Frost heaves in the road, in our business plans, in our lives, are invitations to slow down and appreciate what is percolating beneath the surface.
Try this: When a pothole shows up this month, whether it’s that your car breaks down, you haven’t filled out your tax form, or a manufacturer messes up an order, pat yourself on the back for all the growth you are undertaking. Take several deep breaths and slow down. Bring your awareness to your belly and your feet. Relax your arms, legs, neck and shoulders. Remind yourself that the roughness in the road is a sign that change is afoot, that you’re on the right track. See if you can look at the stumbling block with curiosity. How could you support your creative process if you approached it with a more open attitude? Then take the necessary steps to deal with it.
Support yourself during this time. Recognize that liminality is challenging and brings extra stress. Keep up with good nutrition and exercise habits. Get plenty of sleep. Spend time every day nourishing your soul with meditation, quiet, and interests that feed you.
If you have slowed a bit, you’ll be able to take a wider view. By the time May rolls around, (here in our part of Vermont, April is pretty much like March. Also, creative processes often take longer than we think they should, because they involve more than we anticipated, so aim beyond April) you will have laid more foundation for the successes that will bud in the Spring. Remember that the road will smooth out eventually.
Now go play.
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Sarah Gillen focuses on coaching leaders and gifted people to achieve more, communicate more effectively, innovate more quickly, and build wealth by blending sound business savvy with a commitment to authenticity, values, Spirit, and the development of internal, energetic skills.
