Step into Productivity

By Christine Carron

There are over two hundred bones and six hundred muscles in the human body. There are also multiple types of joints and ranges of motions that create an array of different types of possible movement: flexion, extension, abduction, adduction, protrusion, retrusion, elevation, depression, lateral rotation, medial rotation, pronation, supination, circumduction, deviation, opposition, reposition, inversion, and eversion.

Wow(!), right? And who knew? Not me. I had to look all those details up to write that paragraph. 

Yet, somehow our brains (barring injury or some other difficulty) learned how to coordinate that huge set of variables in a way that enables us to walk, i.e., to create forward momentum, without us having to think about it at a conscious level. It’s awe-inspiring. What's even more awe-inspiring to me is that each of us who are able to walk, have created a way of walking that is uniquely our own.

Perhaps you’ve recognized someone from a distance by their gait. If so, you are seeing that person’s movement uniqueness in action. Or even more precisely, what you are seeing is the way one person’s brain learned to interpret and execute the movement of walking with the variables (bones, muscles, joints, experiences, etc.) that it had and has available. 

Our Unique Creative Productivity Strides 

The way each of us makes progress on the creative adventure is equally unique. Our brains, at any given time, have to navigate a whole host of internal and external variables to help us interpret and execute the movement of creative flow. (In my experience, many of us don't give ourselves enough credit for that, and most certainly our Inner Critics don't.)

When I coach folks, fairly quickly I get a feel for their unique flow gait. Knowing that, sensing into the way their brain is currently interpreting and executing flow, helps me support them in making small adjustments, which gives their brains new input. Their brains then take that input to reinterpret the movement of creative forward momentum in a way that brings them more efficiency, more freedom, and more delight. 

This is why traditional productivity approaches never made much sense to me. They treat us as if we all have the same brain and same experiential input. It’s almost as if those approaches perceive us to be robots who have only the most rudimentary programming for creative flow. With that reduction of our variability, possibility, and potentiality, they offer a few pat solutions (that are often heavy on shaming and harshness), getting us to believe that all our productivity challenges have the same few causes that usually involve a failure on our part. 

Grrrrr. 

Quite Confidently Predicted

". . . the individual course of a developmental trajectory may never be fully knowable beforehand, even though the global outcome can be quite confidently predicted."

A Dynamic Systems Approach to Development: Applications, edited by Linda B. Smith and Esther Thelen

When I work with folks, I never know exactly which of Goodjelly’s principles and tools will click into place when. I simply trust each person’s brain to take in what it can use best at any given moment. But while each person’s learning and integration path is different (and a wonder to behold), I have zero doubt about predicting a near magical global output: that each person’s creative flow will be refined in a way that brings them more ease, confidence, and delight.

My invitation to you this week is to trust your brain’s capacity to do the same. Continue to give it input—like this blog post—that gives it new possibilities to integrate and apply as it refines your creative productivity chops. Your path to refined progress will be uniquely yours, but let’s pre-celebrate today that, given the right input, your progress stride can and will continue to develop in ways that bring YOU more ease, confidence, and delight. That outcome can be (absolutely) quite confidently predicted. Wahoo!

Happy day, happy creating, happy jamming. You’ve got this!