2013 Brilliant Chaos Creating Challenge

The new year is here, and at this time many people create goals. Perhaps you’ve heard of SMART goals? Well, on Planet Chaos (the home of Brilliant Chaos), SMART goals are sooooo early-2000s. No, on Planet Chaos, we ask ourselves “What CHAOS do we want to create in the coming year?” This is our way of inviting you to develop your own Creating Challenge for 2013.

What exactly do we mean by CHAOS? Well, let us tell you:
C-Creation:
What exactly do you want to love into existence?

H-How:
How will you know you’ve accomplished it? What kind of parameters do you need to complete your creation?

A-Achievable:
Can you realistically complete this creation in the time alloted? What resources do you need to do so?

O-OMG (Oh.My.Geefwidiousness!*):
On a scale from 1 to 10, how geefwidious* is this creation for you?

S-Schedule:
How long do you want to take to achieve this creation? How often do you want to work toward it?

Here, at Brilliant Chaos, we will be creating our own CHAOS around the world. And you know what? We’ll be doing it brilliantly.
 
What constitutes CHAOS? Here are some broad categories:
Project: What does not exist now that you want to have exist by the end of 2013? (Example: book, business, website, painting, building, etc.)

Time: How often do you want to create? For what duration? (Example: one project a day for the first week of the month.)

Learning: What new skills are acquired and/or needed? (Example: mastering watercolor painting or developing your website-building skills.)

A mixture of all of the above.

So, in the coming weeks, consider what kind of CHAOS you’d like to bring to the planet. If you would like, express your commitment to CHAOS as a comment on this post along with any requests for support you’d like. As well, please join our Facebook group here. In that group we will host regular check-ins. As well, each of you may create a separate document (see “Files” tab and then click “+Create Doc”) that can list your individual commitments and requests for ready reference.

*Geefwidious®: A word of Brilliant Chaos’ Chaotish Language®, meaning full of wonder and discovery with a sense of satisfaction.

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Wendy’s CHAOS:
C-Creation:
365 Days of Creating: Designing and creating companies of people.

H-How:
Daily activities to include one or more of the following:

• Movement towards create companies of people - could be short-term, long-term, project based, relationship based, with/for creatives, healers and leaders
• Creating structures
• Prophetic art
• Watch videos, read books, experiment, prototype
• Research, Relationship building
• Daily activities to include something visible to the naked eye, in plain sight:
• Post it on personal blog daily
• Post link from my personal blog on Brilliant Chaos FB page daily
• Be fully present when I’m creating.

A-Achievable:
Part of the daily process will be to determine the specific project goals that I’ll pursue throughout 2013.

O-OMG (Oh.My.Geefwidiousness!*):
On a scale from 1 to 10, how geefwidious* is this creation for you? 10!!! I feel VERY challenged and excited by this creating challenge. Way out of my comfort zone!

S-Schedule:
Every day in 2013, small steps, may take 5 minutes up to an hour or two.


Lisa’s CHAOS:
C-Creation:
365 Days of Creating: Developing Artistic Acumen and Projects

H-How:
Do at least one thing a day to move artistic skill and/or projects forward
Examples:

• sketch
• begin an art journal page
• finish an art journal page
• begin an art project
• finish an art project
• watch applicable videos
• read applicable books and magazines
• experiment
• post on blog daily
• post blog link on BC page daily

A-Achievable:
Time set aside each day (10 minutes to 2 hours) to create.
Grace to make up a missed day--if I miss one or more days, I create multiple things on following days.

O-OMG (Oh.My.Geefwidiousness!*):
I am completely exhilarated and slightly overwhelmed. I’m at a 10--a great place to be! Very important to the impact I want CHAOS to have on my life!

S-Schedule:
I will take all year, a bit of time each day (10 minutes to 2 hours) to complete this goal.

5-Day Creating Challenge Coming Up!

Hello, Brilliant Chaos fans!

Time for yet another Creating Challenge! This one will be a five-day Challenge running from Monday, December 5 to Friday, December 9, 2011.

Here are the four steps for each day of the Creating Challenge:

1. Before you take any actions, sit down for a minute or two and conceive of the result you want to create. (Have a clear vision of the finished creation.)
2. Note the current state of the creation. (What is the current status and materials/elements needed to complete the creation?)
3. Take action. (Move from vision to completed reality. Stay true to the vision and resists improvisation.)
4. Once you have finished the project, look at it and live with it for a few minutes. (Reflect on the process and your experience.)

We hope you join us for this upcoming Creating Challenge. As well, if you wish, please join our  Facebook group so you can post your creations and responses to this challenge both on this blog and with our FB community!

Momentum

A week or so ago we completed our seven-day Creating Challenge. How do we all keep the creating vibe alive? We leverage the momentum that naturally occurs in the creating cycle. In this podcast, we describe how!

Creating Challenge #2--We're Halfway There!

Hey, everybody!

We're at the halfway mark of our most recent Creating Challenge. Congratulations for making it this far! To celebrate, we made a podcast just for you--it was our creation for Day 4. It's a little on the rough side--Lisa sounds sometimes as if she's underwater--but we decided to eschew perfection and embrace enthusiasm.

So please take about eight minutes to listen to our five-minute podcast. And thanks for embarking on this challenge with us!

Creating: Not Just for the "Creative" Anymore

"Oh, I can't participate in a Creating Challenge. I'm just not a creative person."

We tend to think that creating is the realm only of the creative: the artist, the writer, the musician, the dancer, anyone with a hand in a free-flowing expression of self. When we don't fall into a more right-brained way of being, we dismiss the concept that we, too, can be creators.

Well, none of you get off that easy! ;-) We are throwing down a Creating Challenge, not a Creative Challenge. Creating is different from being creative. Many creative people don't create at all. They dream big dreams but for whatever reason cannot put pen to paper, hands to clay, or voice to microphone. In contrast, people who create begin a project and finish it. They conceive of something they want to exist in the world, they do what it takes to bring it about, and once it's completed, they release it into the wild.

That's what this challenge is about, and therefore, it can include any number of projects. For example:

• Cooking a beautiful meal for family and/or friends;
• Developing a time map for your week;
• Making a chore jar for your kids, filled with slips of paper that list daily chores;
• Devising an Excell or Numbers document to track your expenses;
• Writing an itinerary for an upcoming trip;
• Replacing a torn screen in your screen door with a new one;
• Arranging a restful space in your home for mediation, reading, and other quiet pursuits; and/or
• Creating anything your heart and mind can imagine!

The Creating Challenge can also include ventures we more traditionally call creative, so go ahead and write your poems and songs, paint your pictures, mold your sculptures. Whatever you choose, take ten minutes to two hours to dream up something and make it real.

So, let's brainstorm some more potential projects. Please comment below and let us know some creations you might bring to fruition during our Creating Challenge! And in case you need the details for our Creating Challenge, you can find those here.

Creating Challenge #2!

Hello, Brilliant Chaos fans!

We got such a charge out of our test-run Creating Challenge that we decided to turn right around and do another one. Not only that, but we've also chosen to lengthen it--this time to seven days. So our upcoming Creating Challenge will run from Monday, June 27 to Sunday, July 3, 2011.

But wait, there's more! We really want to invite YOU along! This challenge is perfect for:

• people who have a number of projects they'd like to complete;
• gifted kids out of school for summer wanting something challenging to do;
• anyone interested in creating; and
• lots more people!

Remember, we've outlined four steps for each day of our Creating Challenge:

1. Before you take any actions, sit down for a minute or two and conceive of the result you want to create. (Have a clear vision of the finished creation.)
2. Note the current state of the creation. (What is the current status and materials/elements needed to complete the creation?)
3. Take action. (Move from vision to completed reality. Stay true to the vision and resists improvisation.)
4. Once you have finished the project, look at it and live with it for a few minutes. (Reflect on the process and your experience.)

We hope you join us for this upcoming Creating Challenge. As well, if you wish, please join our new Facebook group so you can post your creations and responses to this challenge both on this blog and share with our FB users!

We look forward to enjoying this challenge with you!

The Creating Challenge - Day 4

Hello, all!

Well, yesterday was the last day of our challenge, and I (Lisa) celebrated by finishing a drawing I'd begun on Day 3. I followed the process and found it easy since I already had a vision from the first day of drawing. It was simply a matter of completing what I'd begun. I would not have completed the drawing as quickly as I did had I not been involved in this challenge.

I am so happy we did this challenge. It felt good to create each day and to reflect on the process. I am much more in touch with ways I create daily. I hope we do another and longer creating challenge soon. Make sure to follow our young creator Micah who has already begun his own seven-day challenge! And stay posted for our next event--we'd love to have more people join us and tap into their own creating energy!

(And now I've created yet another blog post!)

The Creating Challenge - Day 3

It's amazing that we are already on Day 3 of The Creating Challenge!!!

My (Wendy) creating challenge today was to read a short booklet I've had on my "list of things to read" and then use it as inspiration to create four exercises that teams can use to get past their creative or relational blocks. The goal was to have a short description for each exercise so that I can revisit it at a later date and add more detail for a step by step process.

I found that by approaching this as a creating challenge, I was able to accomplish the task more quickly than I would have otherwise. After reading the booklet, it took about 15 minutes total to come up with each of the four exercises with their description and name. At completion I found that I did not want to spend any time being with what I created but I wanted to be done and go on to the next creating challenge which was to create this blog post. Then I will be complete. Except then I want to start the next creating challenge which may be a two day project...

This is actually really addicting!!! Having a structure for creating, as simple as it is, gives direction to the process and gets both my right brain (creative) and left brain (structural) engaged. I love it!

What is it like for you by Day 3 of your Creating Challenge? Share in the comment space below!

The Creating Challenge - Day 2

Phew! It's been a grueling two days of creating, but we're halfway to the end of our challenge! (Pausing for laughter... What? No laughter?)

Today I wrote a blog post entitled "Meet Me at the Intersection of Gifted Way and Asynchronous Drive". I had promised someone I'd write a blog post for an event she's organizing, so this was a creating opportunity with a deadline.

I followed the process we've laid out--the four steps outlined in "The Creating Challenge - Day 1." I knew I wanted to write a blog post, and had a vague sense of the topic. But I really didn't know what to envision other than a finished blog post. The current state of the creation was just a few ideas in my head, so I moved straight to taking action. I dove into writing and found I had little direction. I had to stop to do some brainstorming, then something coherent seemed to come together. After tinkering with wording and grammar, I hit "publish," and now I have another blog post out there in the world.

As I sit with that reality, I'm feeling grateful yet separate from my creation. I usually feel good when I complete something such as this. I don't feel particularly euphoric today, but I'm thankful that I met the day's challenge.

The irony here is that I'm creating another blog post to describe how I've created a blog post. Maybe a little laughter is called for now? (C'mon--I'm beggin' ya!)

The Creating Challenge - Day 1

Welcome to Day 1 of the Brilliant Chaos Creating Challenge! Both Lisa and I (Wendy) have been inspired by the work of Robert Fritz through his book "Creating" (open your books to pages 173-176) and have taken a 4 day challenge to create 1 thing a day. This podcast is our creation for day 1...and we invite YOU to join us and try out intentional creating for 4 days in a row too!

Here are the parameters:
1. Before you take any actions, sit down for a minute or two and conceive of the result you want to create. (Have a clear vision of the finished creation.)
2. Note the current state of the creation. (What is the current status and materials/elements needed to complete the creation?)
3. Take action. (Move from vision to completed reality. Stay true to the vision and resist improvisation.)
4. Once you have finished the project, look at it and live with it for a few minutes. (Reflect on the process and your experience.)

This challenge is meant to include creation challenges that can be completed within 10 minutes up to a few hours. You choose!

We'll be posting our creations and experience each of the 4 days of this challenge and welcome you to do the same. Join us and see what creating on a daily basis does for you!

Here we go!

Are You Sure It Was Me?

Have you ever been in a conversation or relationship that had you scrambling to understand what was going on? Where the other person was confident that if YOU could only get it straight/right/together all would be well? Where you really tried to fit into the story of life as defined by others?

What if it's not about trying to make sense of the situation or relationship but about recognizing what story you are in and if its the one you are meant to be living?

Lisa and I (Wendy) wanted to share the following video with you to encourage you to be confident in who you are - and the story you were meant to live...



Please contact us if you would like to know about ways we can brilliantly support you in connecting to and living out YOUR authentic story!

Mary Poppins Had It Right: A Spoon Full of Sugar & Work

I (Lisa) hadn't intended to clean my office. I was innocently chatting via Skype with Wendy, and it just sort of happened. We were checking in with each other, both feeling fairly low energy, and Wendy mentioned a number of things she had to do. Then this came across my screen:

"There! I just picked up one folder and put it away as I'm done with it - (pattingselfontheback)."

We celebrated with a little emoticon party, then I realized that I, too, could put a folder away. So I did. Then I put away one more! I skyped to Wendy: "I see your folder, and raise you one!"

She countered with seeing my folder and raising me two books and a binder (and expressed jubilation at seeing carpet space!). I put away my camera, camcorder, and a plastic bag that was just laying on my desk.

Before I knew it, we were in an ad hoc online office clean-off. We went back and forth until we each had cleared a sizable space in our offices and had other commitments to attend to. I didn't clean my whole office, and this wasn't on my to-do list (which, these days, is nonexistent anyways). Instead, Wendy and I seized the moment, spurred each other on with our energy and encouragement, and accomplished something in the spirit of play. Something about the spontaneity, the online interaction, and having someone with whom to share the experience made this activity not just fun but memorable.

For those of us who live on Planet Chaos, play is powerful. We don't respond well to structure, have-to's, to-do lists. Instead, if we can create a spark when we do a task, even something mundane, we can make things happen and feel joy as we do.

When both Wendy and I had to leave, I hopped onto blip.fm and dedicated this song to Wendy: http://blip.fm/profile/deepwaterscoach/blip/35800600/Spoon+Full+of+sugar–Mary+poppins. It seemed the fitting way to complete our experience. Enjoy, and maybe you'll get something done too!

Slooooowwww Mooootionnnnn

Have you ever felt like you were living in slow motion? Did it drive you crazy? Was it a relief? Lisa and Wendy convo about a slower pace in real time slow motion and the treasures they are discovering.

Come on in to Planet Chaos and click on the podcast link...especially if you are on the brink of chaos and hurry and busy! Now is the perfect time!

Full permission to land granted!

Managing Your Energy

A few weeks ago, we shared a podcast about protecting and renewing our energy. Kathy Loh, PCC, CPCC, MA, life coach and wonderful wild woman, commented about this topic on our blog. In fact, she stepped onto her energy-management soapbox, and wowed us with her passion and ideas. We so loved what she had to say that we invited her to play on Planet Chaos with us for an episode. And guess what? She said yes! We hope you are delighted and challenged by what we discussed. Pancake!

NOTE: It seems our technology of late has had Lisa scubadiving off the shores of Planet Chaos during podcasts. The good news? Lisa can apparently talk while underwater (oh, there is no end to her talents). The bad news? It's slightly challenging to listen to. We want you to know we're aware of this problem, are seeking solutions, and appreciate your patience while we resolve it. Thanks for sticking with us!

Our Holiday Wish for You!

OK, so we know we just posted our last podcast, but we really, really want you to hear this one as soon as possible! We wish you a fun, fulfilling, joyous, choice-based holiday season!

Protecting and Renewing Your Creative Energy

It's the most wonderful time of the year...and sometimes the most stressful! In this podcast, we discuss ways to protect and renew your creative energy so that you can make the most of your life and of this holiday season. Happy--and Energy-Filled--Holidays to you!

A Super, Secret Source of Creative Energy

Did you know that in the creative cycle, a secret pocket of energy exists that you can leverage for greater productivity and momentum? Well, it does! In this podcast, we tell you what it is and ponder how we can all take advantage of it!

Great Gobs of Gratitude, Batman!

In this brief podcast, we simply thank you, our listeners, for hopping on the wild Brilliant Chaos ride with us! We wish you the happiest of Thanksgivings!

Free to Begin...

Ever wonder why you just couldn't start that next project or pursue that great idea you have? Me too! Check out this week's podcast where Lisa and I talk about what it means to "converge" and be free to begin new things! I actually share a personal story about convergence in my own life and how it showed up in a big way when I least expected it!

Hey, and don't forget to share any experiences you have had on convergence as a place for beginnings too! We want to hear from you!

P.S. Ever wonder why there is all that empty space between the title of this post and the podcast player? Me too! I can't figure it out so for now we are calling that "breathing space" or "open space" as there is not a lot of that out there these days...except when you visit Planet Chaos that is. ;)

Convergence as Ending

Gifted people are generally natural-born divergers, and systems need diverging phases. In a previous podcast, we've discussed the concept of divergence: the desire and opportunity to brainstorm, collect information, think outside the box, push pylons, and run gleefully down bunny trails.

Eventually, after all that diverging (and also before it--more on this later), we reach a time for convergence, a time for everything to intersect, a time for creating something definite. Time, resources, and people come together for completion. Ahh...what a feeling!

We hope you enjoy our podcast on convergence as ending, and that after you listen you will converge on this blog and share your responses about it with us!