Creating the Impossible: How to Get Any Project Out of Your Head and into the World in Less Than 90 Days

by Michael Neill

There is an innate creative energy in all of us. It’s the animating spirit that separates the quick from the dead – the life-force that expands our lungs, makes our heart beat, and takes care of every one of our biological functions. If we let it, it will bring fresh new ideas to mind whenever we need them, enabling us to solve any problem and move forward in any creative endeavor.

what impacts us most isn’t information (like knowing there are no earthquakes in New York City), it’s insight – the realization of something that’s always been true, regardless of what we happen to believe.

We don’t start because we think that it’s futile, pointless, too late, and we’re not the right person to do it anyway, and those thoughts seem real and true to us.

We stop because our head is filled with thoughts telling us that we’ve left it too late, we’re not having fun, it’s too hard, and it’s not going to happen anyway.

We run out of time because we made up a time-frame that was too short for the project at hand or because we were handed a time-frame and, for whatever reas...

In other words, we think our way in and out of act...

What that means is that any time we want to create something truly new and fresh in the world, we must go beyond the noise of our own mind and into the quiet of the fertile void out of which all things come into being. We need to find the silence beneath the notes, the page beneath the writing, and the space into which our thoughts appear and dissipate.

If we’re writing, we just need to write. If we’re running code, we just need to run code. If we’re making calls, we just need to make calls.

Victor Hugo, the 19th-century author of Les Misérables and The Hunchback of Notre Dame, struggled so hard to get words out of his head and onto the page that in order to motivate himself, he instructed his servant to lock him naked inside the bathroom each morning with nothing but a candle, quill, ink, and paper. When he had ‘darkened the page’ sufficiently to pass three pages of writing underneath the bathroom door, his servant would let him out and help him to dress and begin the day.

But whether fast or slow, disciplined or eclectic, inspired by love and passion or fueled by drugs, alcohol, or the need to pay the rent, everyone I’ve ever met with a high creative output has figured out somewhere along the line that the best way to do good work is to do lots of it. And if you really want to create, at some point you’re going to have to do what creators do – show up each day to your keyboard, easel, workbench, or boardroom and put in the hours.

Sometimes I love the process and get lost in the flow; other times it feels like a chore from start to finish. But by the time I’m done, something exists in the world that didn’t exist when I began.

As you begin to notice that the phases of the creative journey are always the same, from nothing to something, impulse to action, project to product, you come to see the only real obstacles to creating are how easy it is not to begin and how easy it is not to finish.

Everything comes from nothing. Therefore the blank page and the creative spark are the birthplace of every creative endeavor.

When in doubt, begin.

We think we know what things are really like, but we only know what we think. And the wonderful thing about thought is that it can change in the blink of an eye.

In the same way that eight out of 10 computers in use today have some version of Microsoft Office installed, so eight out of 10 people will have taken on the majority of the beliefs and values of the culture in which they live.

Have you ever wondered how it is that you can close your eyes and still know that the world hasn’t disappeared? And how in fact sometimes when you turn your attention inward, the world feels even bigger than when you’re looking out into it?

Thought – the creative force – is the most powerful scribbling pen in the universe. It lets us draw conclusions from the past and make up stories about the future.

We are alive (Mind). We are awake (Consciousness). We are creative (Thought).

One hundred percent of our experience of life is created from inside the mind.

That is, contrary to the way things appear, everything we think, feel, and experience originates in the mind, not in the world. No exceptions. The system only works one way, no matter how it seems.

So, trying to technique my way out of fear was a bit like trying to tell someone falling out of an airplane without a parachute that hitting the ground wasn’t going to hurt. You might convince them of it for a moment or two while they were looking into your eyes, but as soon as they were looking down again, all bets would be off.

Whenever you feel fear, or despair, or hopelessness, or righteous anger, or any one of a host of variations on the theme, it’s the design of the system letting you know where that train of thought is heading. It’s not telling you anything about the world, or even about your capability – it’s simply telling you there’s nothing good waiting for you at the end of this particular train of thought.

Golfer One is having an amazing day. His mind is clear, he did really well on the last hole, and he’s in the flow. He lines up his tee shot, takes the perfect swing, and the ball goes flying. Golfer Two lines up exactly the same way and takes an identical swing. But he’s having a terrible day. He woke up on the wrong side of the bed, blew an easy putt on the last hole, and things seem to be going from bad to worse. Here’s the question: which of the two is going to hit a better shot? Approximately 99 out of 100 people I’ve asked that question of say, ‘Well, the golfer who doesn’t have a lot on his mind, who’s clear-headed and in a good space will hit a better shot, because golf is 90 percent mental.’ But if you think you’ve got to feel great to play great, you’ll be thinking about how you’re feeling and trying to fix it or cope with the circumstances that appear, to your outside-in misunderstanding, to be involved. This hyper-focus on thoughts and feelings (as opposed to the golf ball and your target) may well interfere with your natural ability and learned skills and affect your golf shot.

If you understand that your state of mind will naturally ebb and flow and can no more cause you to perform better or worse than changes in the weather or the number of people in the gallery wearing red shirts, you can continue to play to the best of your abilities regardless.

When we can see that our experience is only and always coming from our own mind, we no longer experience ourselves at the mercy of the world.

We live in a world of Thought, and we can always think again.

Since our state of mind (thoughts and feelings) is continually changing, we don’t need to put any of our energy into attempting to control it.

We can always play the game of life to the best of our abilities, regardless of how we happen ...