I just want to reiterate something I’ve realized a while back because I think it’s critical to the experience of growth and development.
Creativity is a process of discovering something that’s already there but you just weren’t aware of it until you actually discovered it.
The keyword in that statement above is aware.
This is why you didn’t know this thing already existed because you just weren’t aware of it.
This has become a reoccurring pattern in my own growth and development.
For example, in 2001 when I experienced my first major challenge as an adult in my life, I was completely oblivious and unaware that I had already gone through previous stages of psychological development in my life and had levelled up my level of consciousness already. If I had, it may have altered my perspective and perception of the challenge I was facing at that moment and may have helped me to progress through it quicker rather than fight against the experience.
Another example applies to organizational development. Perhaps if leaders in organizations could become aware of and see the collective leadership already within their company, they wouldn’t try to control people to change but let people change in ways they already are. In effect, often people are taking collective leadership within organizations to work around the bureaucracy of existing “leaders.” So if you just get out of their way and let them freely explore this collective leadership, the transformation of the organization will occur much more effortlessly.
And finally, if I had been aware I was transitioning to the next stage of my psychological development back in 2015, I perhaps wouldn’t have wasted so many years beating myself up at “failing” when I was actually “growing.” In effect I wasn’t aware that the challenge I was facing, which feels like hitting a wall and feeling stuck, was the actual indicator that I was beginning to transition to a new stage of development.
Of course, someone might say, “Well hindsight is 20/20.” In other words, it’s easy to see what should have been done after an event has already happened, but it’s harder to see that clearly beforehand.
But this goes beyond this. Why? Because even after the event had occurred, I wasn’t aware of the transition because I was still immersed within it. In effect, events are events. Transitions, however, are multiple ongoing events and experiences.
In other words, it harder to become aware of things you’re still immersed within. In effect, something you’re still dealing with and trying to move forward with.
Yet the paradox here is that you often can’t become aware of what you’re immersed within, until you can creatively step out of it and gain an objective perspective of it to actually become aware of it.
This is what I believe reflection allows someone to creatively do but I obviously don’t do it enough.
I need to make a daily practice of reflection.
Reflection is perception training.
ChatGPT
The more you reflect, the more you catch emergence mid-bloom.