Have you ever sat down with a blank piece of paper and just drew your castle? Have you given yourself the time, space, and permission to dream? If not, then please, for the love of humanity and all things good, please find time to love on yourself this way today.
If you need support in this area, I invite your to listen to this brilliant short youtube video by Taylor Conroy: 5 minutes to Your Life Purpose. Taylor is brilliant.
Once you draw your castle, start building it. Build until it is finished.
As Maverick in the latest Tom Cruise movie advised his students, “you don’t have time to think up there. If you think, you are dead.”
Extreme. Perhaps. However, I could write a whole book, longer than the history of the world about castles I have drawn and have failed to start building or have added a few stones and for one reason or other talked myself out of continuing.
Why? Because I stopped to think.
For me, stopping to think is about self-doubt, or feeling the need to strategize, or feeling unworthy, or feeling like I am too small to build such a great castle. Also, the amount of steps and failures between me and that castle are unknown, and oh imagine what could go wrong.
For the purpose of this blog post, I highlight some thoughts from Ian H. Robertson’s book: The Winner Effect: The Science of Success and how to Use it
There is a Goldilocks zone in which the body gets a great supply of dopamine upon winning. If you win too much or get rewarded too much, you shut down, if you win too little, you shut down. Winning too much means staying in your daydream of seeing the castle but not moving forward and being delusional about what you have actually created. Winning too little means taking too many tangents and/or self-sabotaging.
How to stay in the “just right” zone? Find ways to win. Not just any win, but a win along the path to your castle. It does not have to be big wins to give you a sense of moving forward. Just find ways to win every day along the path of building your castle.
And, actually, I have done this before and perhaps you have too.
I started playing flute in the 5th grade. Most days, I practiced. I practiced because I got better EVERY DAY. I felt it. I heard it. I experienced it. It drew me in like a bug to a beautiful light. The more it drew me in, the more I practiced. I made honor band, I made All State, I got into conservatories and traveled to across the USA and European countries to study with great teachers.
Something happened though that is an important part of this winning journey where I took my focus off the daily wins and blew my requirements for what my wins would look like up way too big. I began to THINK.
I attended a wonderful arts academy in high school, Interlochen Arts Academy in Michigan. I went from being the big fish in a small pond, to being a big fish in a HUGE fish pond. In the book, it mentions that this scenario can hijack a person off the road to winning.
And, in my experience, this is how it happened for me. Seeing the bigger fish, I made my win requirements bigger. The requirements were so big, it was like trying to read a book with my nose on the book. It was impossible to navigate, quite literally.
A win that would look like me, the fish, needing to be able to leap and literally fly off the dam gracefully landing with minimal splash in order to succeed in life. I saw some of those other big fish doing that and so I must also. However, I only had 1 1/2 years in that environment. I had been in the other for over 15 1/2 years. I did not give myself grace. I was not patient. I hit the pedal to the medal and ran right off the road.
The stress literally made me sick. I came down with tendonitis in both arms. I remember starting college and not being able to open doors or type papers.
I was starting to win too little…. because my requirement for what a win was was too big, and I forgot the enjoy the block by block of building the castle wins.
So, I stopped playing. For 14 years. Interestingly enough, I was quite busy those 14 years. I had over 30 jobs got married and had a baby.
Then, an interesting thing began to happen. I began to learn graphic design. I started with Canva, then dove into building websites with gohighlevel, shopify, SharePoint, and wordpress, then dove into the Adobe Creative Cloud Suite, starting with Adobe Illustrator… and I felt me heart begin to open up again.
I was getting back into the Goldilocks zone.
Thus, this blog. Brandi Crosby Create & Grow. The Goldilocks zones lies in the pleasure of the daily tasks moving you towards your castle. Some would call it delighting in the journey.
The interesting thing about playing flute was I did not really care where I ended up as I knew that I would be able to bless the hearts of others and if God wanted me to succeed in a big way, those doors would just open.
So, my castle. What does it look like in the future if I am to be so focused on the day to day now? Well, my castle looks like me being used to bless others. To look out in the audience and see a tear rolling down someone’s face as they listen to me play because it reminds them of a beautiful memory. To see someone feeling beautiful because they are wearing something with an illustration I created or cooking in a kitchen with an illustrated pattern on a tablecloth or wallpaper that I got to bring to the world. To put in the work to be great, enjoy the journey, and to teach others how to do the same.
Many blessings to you all! What is your castle? ~ Brandi Crosby
Read more from my blog HERE:)
For all things Flute HERE:)
For my Illustration Portfolio HERE:)
HEART! ~ Brandi Crosby