Welcome to the final posting for this #WCIW series on the Inner Development Goals.
I hope you’ve enjoyed them.
“Can you remember who you were before the world told you who you should be. – Charles Bukowski”
As a mentor, transformative facilitator, and writer I focus on creativity, which is actually listed as one of the skillsets in the Inner Development Goals Framework.
All of my life I have, in one way or another, supported people in their creative endeavours. Regardless as to whether or not I was doing this by having a chat to a friend over a beverage or working as a creative producer on an elaborate event I found myself, again and again, talking about the same skills and qualities listed in the IDGs, asking things like
What role does self-awareness play in sustaining a creative identity? Or
How do we make sense of patterns we are seeing in our work? Or
Why does feeling under-appreciated affect my creativity in the way that it does? Or
How do I nurture trust with my collaborators? Or
How do I find the perseverance to finish my project when I feel exhausted and discouraged?
We are all innately creative: you cannot be human, breathing, and not be creative. Even if we’re not professional artists, we all have imaginations, capacities and needs to make sense of things, to tell and hear stories, to see patterns, to connect thoughts and ideas, to play and tinker and experiment…
And the weird thing is that we have ended up living in a society that seems to mitigate against creativity, to squelch down on it. So those innate skills and qualities that I talk to in my work on creativity, and which the IDGs list as so essential, can end up lying underutilised within us.
The IDGs were created to support people to cope with complex issues; they were specifically linked to the worthy but demanding issues and goals contained in the Sustainable Development Goals. How can people cope with the challenges of climate change or inequity or poverty without having inner reserves and resources to sustain effort, or collective imagination, or adaptability, or resilience?
To develop those internal reserves of skills, qualities, values, and beliefs we need to reach for the very same skills and qualities that may have been squelched by our mad profit-driven, reckless, inequitable society: those parts of our inner lives that have lain underutilised, unrecognised, unexplored, and unloved. Even if you as an individual have undertaken to honour and nurture your inner life – and many of us have – organisational life often embroils us in systems and processes and cultures that make the expression of that inner life difficult, if not unwise.
“Maps made places on the edges of the imagination seem graspable and placable.” – Abdulrazak Gurnah
In writing my posts and now preparing to deliver a workshop on the IDGs I have found that I have enjoyed working with them, playing with them. I am looking forward to talking to people about how they could be used to map a pathway for those underutilised skills and qualities to come out into the sunlight. To help people to connect with that which is felt, sensed, and imagined inside of them with a sense of agency that can be manifested in their external world.
I sense a growing curiosity around the IDGs, and I wonder if it isn’t to do with the efforts that the IDG creators have made to take essential skills and qualities and to make them seem less abstract or ‘touchy-feely’ and more tangible and graspable. So many people are yearning for positive change and a sense of agency. Anything that helps them to make sense of this and to harness its dynamics in positive ways is welcome.
Thank you for reading.
Feel free to share these articles on social media but, if you do, I would love it if you could include the #WCIW and #IDGs hashtags.
If you want to find out more about the IDGs, then check out the website here.
The IDG Summit is on the 29 April 2022. Information and bookings here.
If you have enjoyed this article, why not come to my free workshop to explore them further. It will be held on the 27 April 2022. Information and bookings here.