Am I Good Enough?
“Am I good enough?”
This was the most common feeling that came out of an event my partner, Shannon, and I were asked to create for an Indianapolis marketing agency.
That, closely followed by, “I’m afraid to let teammates down” and “How can I communicate better?”
Sound familiar?
That applies to most of us and our usual work (and beyond) fears, right?
We were asked, with this event, to bring this creative team out of their shells and out of their siloed working habits and into a more cohesive (and playful) group.
Our goal with this was pretty simple: to prove to them that they are all artists and poets and how to put that into their work (the same goal of our new masterclass, Born Creative).
To do this, one of the elements we brought was a quick turnover of our mind-bender assignment, “Always The Other,” that proves how we can go from an abstract and meaningless idea into (“Ah-HA!”) something that has personal meaning for the artist as well as can be a world changing campaign.
The lesson here was that we don't actually need as much time as we think to make great work—a short deadline is inspiration enough. The bigger lesson is that ours is a more powerful voice than we lead ourselves to believe.
We also asked them to do the hard and overlooked work of looking inward and asking important questions about work and fear and confusion.
When we ask, “Am I good enough?” it’s because we fail to look around and see where we are, how far we’ve come and that, “Guess what?! You’re already here! You’re in the club! You made it!”
These painful questions are universal, but when we share them we make room for others to open up and be more honest and vulnerable— then this expands out further and creates communication and understanding.
By putting a name to and voicing those fears we can begin to dispel them.
We become so concentrated on the objective of our jobs— what we are asked to do—that we forget about the subjective part—HOW we do it.
We forget to bring our play and fun. We forget how to treat each other, and how we talk to each other.
Sometimes we just need the right guide to turn your gaze both inward to your creativity and then generously outward to each other, so we can see our differences and be made strong and into a team by our similarities.
The lesson for you is to talk. Talk, talk and talk some more. Share with the intention to listen. And listen with empathy. Help each other, teach each other. And do it… creatively.