Put Some Personality In Your Process

By Christine Carron

This blog post is landing on Goodjelly’s four-year anniversary. (Wahoo!) One of the constants on this grand adventure has been my mission to communicate the truth that the most effective way to get your creative work done is to have a process for getting that work done that is totally aligned with you. Basically, your creative work management process needs some personality—more specifically, it needs to be bursting at the seams with your personality. 

A Creativity Crush 

Here's a little tidbit about my personality. I have a creativity crush on Viggo Mortensen. He is one of my creative person idols. Whenever I come across an interview with him, I am all in and completely agog. I recently came across a segment he did on The Kelly Clarkson Show. Expected pause of all other activities ensued.

Viggo* was on the show to promote his western The Dead Don’t Hurt. Toward the end of the interview, his costar in the movie, Vicky Krieps, joined him. One of the things she spoke about was how she gets out of a role’s energy once filming wraps. She writes a song to the character. As she sang some of the song for that role, I was struck by how perfectly she was embodying the very idea of process personality I was pondering. (I’m telling you, my Viggo crush never fails to deliver.)  

Principles with Personality

The foundations of Smart Process—one of Goodjelly's Core Resolutions for creating unstoppable flow—are generalized process principles. Once you get those locked in, then the next move is to infuse you into those principles. In this case, Krieps was using a process principle that relates to closing loops and creating clear markers for finishing. Doing so supports focus and motivation. She then took action on it in a way that is completely unique to her. 

One of the biggest delights that has come out of teaching a robust set of process principles through Goodjelly’s programs for multiple years now is watching how each person starts to express their personality through the principles. Those expressions then feed the imagination of others in the community, enlivening and enriching each person’s expression of Smart Process. 

One of the writers in the program recently asked me on a call the other day if I was keeping a record of all the different ideas people were coming up with. Those ideas were a powerful source of inspiration for her, regularly bringing new possibilities into the way she was getting her own creative work done. She didn't want to miss even one of those organic process innovations.

Personality Power

My hope, as we head into year five of Goodjelly’s existence, is that your trust in your own process personality instincts continues to grow. Revel in learning process principles, then resolutely infuse those principles with the uniqueness of you. Riffing on today’s example, you might close out your next project—or even just your next creative work session—with a song, with a dance, with an ode, with a dinner in the company of dear friends, or perhaps with a solitary ramble beneath a starlit sky. 

The more you are part of the way you get your creative work done, the more you will be setting up favorable conditions for flow. You will be in the game, in the groove, and experiencing more delight all along the way. Wahoo!

Happy day. Happy creating. Happy jamming. You've got this.

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* Mr. Mortensen? How does one actually address one’s creativity crush?