Amplify: Lessons 1.4 to 1.6
I’m still following the Amplify course and will be in the next few weeks. In this post, I’m covering lessons 1.4 to 1.6. Lesson 4 is the last one about framing, lessons 5 and 6 cover your relationship with your creative flow.
Lesson 1.4: Creative Stability
Lesson 4 of part 1 covers the need to define a framing (= story that you tell yourself) that leads to stability and consistency. Below two quotes were particularly relevant for me:
If your framing is too vulnerable to emotional shifts that can disrupt your creative priorities, you’ll likely suffer from a lot of directional pivoting, which can make it very difficult to achieve the results you want.
It’s much easier to be consistent if you pick frames that generate stable and desirable emotions for you.
The accompanying exercise asks you to choose and write up a brief description of how you’re framing your Amplify journey for yourself. And to evaluate whether this framing is likely to be emotionally and motivationally stable throughout the course.
Amplify fits into my life and matters to me because I'm curious to see how much I can grow in terms of my creative productivity. In addition to this, I thought hard before buying this course whether I should do it or not but now that I have spent the money it is my duty to ensure that it is money well spent by regularly listening to the lessons and doing the exercises. Finally, by doing this publicly it also becomes a matter of honor and a social experience that I can't give up on.
This is a stable framing because I've always been curious and in similar situations in the past where I carefully considered whether I was going to invest in myself I did follow through. Doing this course publicly gives that tiny bit of extra motivation to get to the finish line.
Lesson 1.5: Your Core Creative Relationship
The core message of this very powerful lesson is that your relationship with your creative flow is more important than money and success. In it, Steve mentions a long list of actions and mindsets that damage and strengthen this relationship.
If you maintain a strong relationship with your creative flow, it will yield some really nice results for you, and you can keep improving those results over time. But if you damage this relationship, then you'll find yourself trying to chase after those benefits, one by one, separately; and it will probably seem like a monumental task to do that.
The exercise has you answer two questions: What are you doing that damages your relationship with your creative flow? What could you do to improve this relationship?
I’m damaging my relationship with creative flow by:
Not sleeping sufficiently
Delaying/postponing action
Being unreliable in showing up
Not making sufficient time
Small addictions like mobile games, news, and food
Having a job that requires little creativity and is misaligned
Being overly critical about my own work and capabilities
I could strengthen my relationship with creative flow by:
Schedule time for creative flow
Actively blocking distractions
Setting clear intentions
Showing more appreciation for my work
Lesson 1.6: Honoring Your Muse
In ancient Greek mythology, the muses were goddesses that gave humans the gift of inspiration to artists, writers, poets, musicians, and scientists. For this lesson, Steve invites you to personify your relationship with your creative flow by just imagining that these goddess muses are real.
The exercise is to imagine you've been assigned a real Greek goddess as your own personal muse. What is she like? How would you describe her?
She loves to solve problems, especially meaningful problems. She gets easily bored. She is generous. She is not interested at all in becoming rich. When faced with too much criticism she shuts down. She respects perseverance.
What is her assessment of you right now?
This is what she said: Up until now you've been very good at consuming and reflecting on all the ideas I've been bringing into your life. You've realized some commendable projects but in general taking action has not been your forte.
What does she want from you?
She wants me to give her love and attention. She wants me to be grateful. She wants me to honor the inspiration she is giving me by taking action and turning it into meaningful contributions.
Note: this was not an easy lesson and exercise for me.
In the following post, I’ll cover lessons 1.7, 1.8, 1.9, and maybe even 1.10 if it is not too much. After that, I can start learning and working on Module 2: Opportunity. Subscribe below if you want to follow along.