Why You Almost Never Get the Results You Want
Your Plumbing, and What’s Running Through It
Everything we do is for the results, right?
We work to make money. We exercise to be healthy. We go to school to get a degree. We play the game to win the game.
The thing is, when we look at results, we don’t have complete control over how they turn out. You don’t decide how much you get paid. You don’t choose your own grades.
The only thing you have complete control over is your process.
You may not even recognize you have a process. It’s there. You just need to look for it.
Your process is the thing that leads to results. Some of it will be outside of your control because there are often other people involved. Still, you have a strong influence over it.
And, you can change it any time you want.
Your Vault and Your Plumbing
You can debate whether you’re creative or not, but I’ll assure you, you are.
We can talk more about that another time. But, for now, I’m going to refer to the energy you put into your process as creative energy.
Think of your stash of creative energy as a bank vault. It is private. It is yours. There isn’t even a door for anyone else to get in there if they wanted to.
Your vault can hold a limitless amount of creative energy, but that energy needs to move, flow, and get used. Otherwise, it degrades and rots.
There are pipes connected to your creative vault. This is how your energy gets into the world and allows you to create for yourself and others.
The pipes represent your creative process and the methods you use to interact with the universe…
To be clear, that’s what creativity is… an interaction or exchange with the universe.
Everyone has a creative process whether you are aware of it or not. That process (your plumbing) dictates how the world receives your creativity. You can do two things to change it:
- Change your energy
- Change your plumbing
The pipes delivering your creative energy may not be efficient for your creativity. They could be old, rusty, or clogged.
What does that look like in the real world?
It means you have a bad process. Maybe you’re stuck in a job you’re unfit for. Maybe you live in a stifling environment or you’re struggling to make a living all together.
Your creative pipes could be clogged with all kinds of rules, restrictions, regulations, and standards. Bad pipes mean your creative energy has a hard time getting out into the world. The wrong system could taint your creative expression or silence it completely.
Most people throw their hands up and accept their reality. That doesn’t have to be you, and (goddammit) it shouldn’t be.
Your Routes to Change
A reflex for people who want to create change is to take the empowered road…
It might sound something like this:
I’m done with this crap! I’m quitting today! From this day forward I’m living MY life on MY terms.
Quitting and walking out on your boss can feel great for a moment. Until reality sets in.
Income is an essential part of your process no matter who you are. Leaving a job without a plan is like getting rid of your old plumbing without knowing where to get new pipes. It’s a dangerous route. Poor pipes are better than none…
Imagine if all the plumbing to your toilets disappeared. We don’t need to get graphic but you see it. It’s bad.
Creating your own process out of thin air is a bigger job than it seems. Especially when you don’t know what a good one looks like. It’s not impossible. Still, escaping a system doesn't fix everything.
Jumping before you’re ready may actually set you backwards.
The alternative route is in changing your energy. The creative system you pump into your system everyday is under your control.
And, if you have high-quality energy running through your pipes, it can improve the system as a whole.
Great energy can’t solve all problems by itself, but it can clean up some of the gunk and grime clogging up your pipes.
If your energy is a thick sludge you’re pumping through a clogged system, you’re making things worse.
Great energy can be like running Draino through your system. It can’t fix everything, but it will make one hell of a difference. Once you see how energy can make a poor system better, you’ll know a great system will change everything.
If nothing else, improving your energy will give you time to build a foundation for a better system.
