Embodiment educators, creativity can kill your business
How procrastination and perfectionism masquerade as creativity
Are you the kind of somatic expert that has an insatiable hunger for knowledge and experience? I know so many absolutely brilliant body workers and movement educators who spend just as much time learning new stuff about the body as they do actually earning money sharing what they do know.
That was me about 10 years ago. I got laid off from a high profile job and my self confidence took a big hit. My response was about four years of increasing isolation and economic difficulty, and hours and hours and hours of working on my craft and skill. It’s not a black and white thing, because my creativity is one of my strong suits! But it can take me to a dark place. There is no end to what you can learn about human bodies. They are an infinite mystery!
The more I worked at “developing my work” the more my ability to share it faded into the background. You work hard as an embodiment educator to get an external license that makes it legal to practice. My certification to teach the Alexander Technique took 3 years and 1600 hours, but I’ve also done ridiculous amounts of continuing education, way more than what is required to keep my certification. Eventually you either go out of business, or you take the leap and give yourself the internal license to lead others into the mystery.
I didn’t need more training. It was only through the encouragement of peers that I got out of my rut. If you are a movement expert — an Alexander Teacher, a dance educator, a yoga teacher, a Body Mind Centering teacher, or have any other kind of certificate or training or license — you have a right to start sharing what you know and earning a living now.
Furthermore, there are a gazillion people out there who really need and want what you have. What are you waiting for? I now lead Mastermind groups for embodiment experts and these are the three reasons I’m seeing people get stuck in their business:
1) Lack of Confidence in Skill
2) Creativity Creep
3) Waiting for COVID to be over
I’m not going to write an endless essay about each of these topics. Suffice it to say that most teachers are very sensitive and vulnerable human beings who have an appropriate humility when it comes to what they know and what they don’t know. They have a spirit of inquiry which makes them great teachers, but they very rarely have confidence or feel secure when they are teaching. The main mistake they make is believing confidence is necessary. Teaching is a heightened state similar to performing and involves riding waves of excitement and emotion and knowing how to come back down to ground gently.
You don’t need confidence, what you need is the skill to flow through all of those feelings and stay focused on the learning edge without burning out. Peer-to-peer support is so helpful in building this skill. Performers and artists who succeed usually have some kind community that supports them in looking at systems and processes over product — which rules the marketplace. I started my membership community for embodiment educators, The Experimenters Union, to create the kind of community I needed to keep going. In the Union we practice together weekly — and it’s such a joy to realize how much each one of us has to contribute as well as learn from the others. No one has to be brilliant, brilliance just kind of…happens.
Creativity creep plagues those who have an original vision and are trying to perfect it before they put it out into the world. Unfortunately, perfection doesn’t exist. Creativity creep is often procrastination masquerading as productivity. You can actually engage in creating your work while you are earning a living. You don’t have to wait to charge your clients what you are worth until you find “the answer.” They really just want to be with you on the journey!
Lastly, COVID may never be over. It’s changing itself day by day, and we could learn from that. We need to respect it and adapt, and I believe that embodiment experts can lead the way. People need what we have desperately. They need the skills to ride the waves and get their feet back on the ground, many many times a day. We can show them how to move through their lives with flow, poise, and compassion.
In my Mastermind groups, I share my own hard won best practices for teaching online, because I think this will be a part of any healthy business in the post-COVID world. I also share twelve basic steps to building a healthy business, and help you identify exactly where you are and what your most important next steps are to bring in income. Don’t be fooled into thinking you need to be more brilliant than you already are.
If you feel called to re-dedicate yourself to your embodiment practice as a business, there are 4 spots opening up in my Mastermind group in May, but the early bird discount ends March 31, so don’t wait to book a free 45 minute interview.
Clare Maxwell is the creator of Mobilignment™ and a teacher of the Alexander Technique; she creates community and online biz success for embodiment educators. www.claremaxwell.com
