Door 3: Abilities

Starting from scratch, restarting your personal and professional lives, is quite a challenge. "How am I going to do it?", "Will I have the skills?", These are the questions I asked myself.

Know that the notion of Capacity corresponds to Robert Dilts' "third logical level of change". This level answers the question "How?" and refers to the skills, know-how or strategies that determine our behaviors. So I was there.

Functional-dysfunctional strategy

In itself, a strategy is neither good nor bad. It will be said to be functional or dysfunctional, depending on whether or not it allows a task to be carried out effectively.

I have an analytical mind. Since childhood, I have developed the ability to foresee “worst case scenarios” and develop strategies accordingly. These have served me well over time, probably to outwit an authoritarian father. However, they have also worked against me greatly. Not only were the projects I envisioned difficult to carry out because I focused too much on potential problems, but the strategies I used were very anxiety-provoking for me and those around me.

I needed to transmute this vulnerability into strength. I needed to transform this ability to see the worst into the ability to create the best. I wanted to make my projects realistic, achievable and motivating.

It was in 2010 that I first experimented with a strategy that I really like, for its simplicity, its fun side and its effectiveness: Walt Disney's creativity strategy.

Walt Disney's Approach

One of the traps I fell into when undertaking a project was to do the following three things simultaneously: dream the project, make it realistic, and critique it.

For example, I wanted to create new opportunities, while trying to remain realistic. I wanted to listen to my desires, while trying to anticipate problems and risks. Or, I wanted to show ambition, while trying to remain clear-sighted about my abilities… The results were neither conclusive nor satisfactory.

I learned in a training in 2010 that this approach was doomed to failure. Indeed, these three operations corresponded to three different and incompatible mental dispositions. Thus, marveling at a project while trying to remain lucid and prudent, completely curbed my imagination and ambition. Conversely, it was difficult for me to anticipate the difficulties in a project, while fully dreaming of it.

Walt Disney's creativity strategy is precisely based on the complete separation of the three operations: Dream, Realism, Criticism. This is the key to its effectiveness. It allowed Walter Elias Disney to be very creative and to experience, in particular, a gigantic success in the production of his films.

The dreamer

First, you need to choose three separate locations that correspond to three different rooms, or three different spaces in the same room.

Identify them and move into the 1st space, the Dreamer.

Principle: Think of a situation in which you are stuck, or a project that you really want to accomplish. Write down all the ideas that come to mind.

Rule: Allow yourself to dream, to believe in the impossible, without judging or criticizing yourself. You see yourself achieving your goal with everything you have imagined.

The realist

Then move into the 2nd space, the Realistic.

Principle: Write down the detailed steps of an action plan, based on the ideas generated in the Dreamer stage.

Rule: Be realistic, without criticism or judgment. You see yourself carrying out the plan and implementing all the ideas put forward.

The critic

Then move to the 3rd space, the Critique

Principle: Anticipate problems in carrying out the plan developed in the Realistic stage. Check what is missing or what could go wrong. Prepare corrective actions.

Rule: Be critical. Only examine ideas that are expressed in the Realist's space.

Cycle

Once these steps are completed, return to the Dreamer space to find creative solutions to the questions and issues raised by the Critic. Develop a plan for these new ideas in the Realist space. Finally, test the new plan in the Critic space.

Repeat the cycle in any order you like, according to your needs, until you are fully satisfied.

I invite you to experiment with this simple and fun strategy. The end of the year is the perfect excuse to let your imagination run wild. You have the power to dream and the ability to achieve. So, write your dream scenario for the coming year and, through the magic of Walt Disney, make your dream a reality.