Goliath is a stubborn dude. One minute he’s in the dust with his head bleeding, the next he’s back to and throwing spears at your tender heart. The creative life is not for the feeble or faint-hearted, that’s for sure. You’ll face fears, have to climb over yourself more times than you can count, and get up and dust yourself down on a regular basis.
And the greatest giants in the creative life? Not the trolls on social media. Not the critics who love to lay a one-star on your book baby. Not the complainers who want to swipe you down to size and keep you safely within the bounds of what they think is acceptable and possible.
Nope. The biggest, ugliest, most stubborn giants are the ones you carry in your own backpack.
The accumulated baggage you carry every day and pop their heads out every time to choose to step beyond the boundaries and believe you can make a difference.
These monsters started life as tiny embryos of self-doubt. The poisonous seeds sown by an ungracious teacher. The scathing comments of a parent or so-called friend. The well-meaning warnings of someone trying earnestly to save you from disappointment. After all, if you don’t take a risk you can’t lose, right?
The problem is, these innocuous seeds grow into poisonous pictures that frame a failing future. Take one step out of line and the highlight reel of your shame flashes before your eyes.
Why do we continue to allow such beastly thoughts to lodge. Why carry them from decade to decade clinging to our back and clipping our wings with their weight?
Here are some of the things these backpack bruisers like to alight upon:
- The fact you didn’t sell as many, if any, of the products you created.
- The pitiful number of comments or likes your social post receives.
- The small audience engaged with your newsletter.
- The minimal opt-ins to your offer.
- The tiny crowd who turn up for your live virtual event or webinar.
- The number of books that you sell after publication.
- The fact that your name is glaringly unknown.
Or how about…
- The fact someone else is seemingly selling truckloads of the product they created…
- The massive engagement anyone other than you gets on their social posts…
Etc etc etc!
Giants carry a lop-sided magic mirror – you show them beauty and they point out your weakness.
In this miserly mirror, you are never enough.
Giants love to highlight how small you are or how big someone else is. That’s the tactic.
It’s the inward battle of the mind to stay faithful to your call and keep creating despite the setbacks and challenges you face along the way.
Giants want your eyes to be on the growling mountains that stand in your path. God wants your focus on His faithfulness and favor.
Paul the apostle had something to say about this comparison conundum a couple of millennia ago:
“For we dare not … compare ourselves with some that commend themselves: but they measuring themselves by themselves, and comparing themselves among themselves, are not wise.” (2 Corinthians 10:12 KJV)
He then speaks about staying in your lane and not being distracted by what everyone else is up to:
“We, on the other hand, will not boast beyond our legitimate province and proper limit, but will keep within the limits [of our commission which] God has allotted us as our measuring line and which reaches and includes even you.” (2 Corinthians 10:13 AMP)
And how serving your chosen audience consistently and humbly leads to expansion:
“We do not boast therefore, beyond our proper limit, over other men’s labors, but we have the hope and confident expectation that as your faith continues to grow, our field among you may be greatly enlarged” (2 Corinthians 10:15 AMP)
My encouragement to you today, if you have taken the courageous step to accept your creative commission, is to keep on keeping on.
Sure, that may sound trite. It could even be called a cliché.
But the other option is no option at all.
There is no turning back. No scurrying back to the trembling crowd to hide your light under a bushel.
Drop the baggage.
Be present, be alive, be free, and keep serving and selling.
God is your creative Partner in this worthy endeavour.
And He is able!
