Make waves
make waves - To do something innovative that draws a large amount of attention and makes a widespread impact on its society, industry, etc., often causing controversy in the process.
Just relax. Don't make waves. If you make waves too much around here, you won't last long. (source: thefreedictionary.com)
Dear Creative Soul,
Usually, I write this letter directly to you, sharing what I've learned. This time, I think I should tell you a story about my creativity.
As a child I wasn’t afraid to share my creativity. I loved to make waves, sharing my creative work. Mind you, I was afraid of a lot, but in my creativity I was such a fearless child.
When I was around ten years old I wrote a lot of poetry in a red binder. I didn't care about what people thought of it, or what the quality was according to my mind. I just did it.
One day, I gave one poem I was very proud of to my teacher. He read it, loved it, and weeks later I got published for the first time, in my school newspaper.
And then I became an adult, and, well, you guess it, that fearlessness disappeared.
Fear keeps popping up at random times.
An example: the other day a post of me went (for my blog's usual numbers at least) viral. I stared at the number of visitors that post garnered in a week and fear snuck in. Was my work even good enough for so much attention?
I stared for a while, wondering what to do when my common sense set in: whether two people read my posts or two hundred it should not matter. It's a new day, go write something else.
That didn't work, I froze instead. I did some soul searching, got real honest with myself and realised I was afraid of making waves.
Such a lightbulb moment, and one I knew how to handle, as I know myself well enough to know that at these moments I have to remember myself to play.
When I play I can do amazing things. When I play I get fantastic ideas that I'm never afraid to share, to play with more.
When I play, the fearless child is present and boy, does she shine.
I don't know if I am over my fear of making waves just with that one realisation.
I can however make a vow, I'm going to stop myself every time I make up excuses for not doing something, and ask myself: what's this fear and what can I do to break through?
What have you stopped yourself from doing? What was your excuse? What was your real fear?
When will you make waves?
Create on!
Sylvia