Usually we want to eliminate tension in our life. We see tension along with anxiety as a bad thing – as health destroying. Today I’m talking about a different kind of tension – a kind of tension that is good. This tension is called creative tension.
Creative tension is when current reality doesn’t match the reality we’d like to see. There is a bit of unease that we feel when there is creative tension – sometimes only in our subconscious. We are uneasy because current reality isn’t reconciled with the reality we envision. There is an unresolved duality.
We have two main responses to this situation. We can change current reality to match the reality we envision, or we can change our envisioned reality to match current reality. We can either work to achieve our goals or we can lower our goals. Either way the tension is resolved.
Of course, lowering our goals doesn’t move us forward in life. We may feel better, but we stay stuck where we’re at. Highly successful people use creative tension to propel them forward in life.
There are two things we need to do to make creative tension effective:
1. Have a high commitment to the truth
2. Have a clear picture of the reality we want.
Commitment to Truth
A commitment to the truth means that we are committed to seeing the truth of current reality no matter how uncomfortable it is. This way we won’t just declare that current reality matches our envisioned reality even when it doesn’t. I’ve seen this done in business. We miss our project or product goals, so we “spin” our view of current reality to say that we met our goals anyway.
I’ve done this myself. I’ve deluded myself into thinking that I don’t have any areas in which to grow, but this is far from the truth. We need a commitment to the truth so that we don’t delude ourselves into thinking everything is great when there is still work to be done. Because there is that uneasy feeling in creative tension, we will be tempted to blind ourselves to the truth.
Clear Vision
Having a clear picture of the future we desire is equally important. Have you ever set some goals, and then later on forgot that you set them, or at some point forgot the details of the goals? I have. When we don’t have a clear written goals or a clear written vision of our future, we will be tempted to resolve creative tension in lots of creative ways other than moving forward in our life.
What about you? Tell us about a time when you were highly effective in reaching your goals. What worked for you?
