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The Six Sides of the So-Called Box
Understand Your Creative Obstacles So You Can Go Beyond Them
Unless you’ve been in a coma for the past 20 years, I’m sure you’re familiar with the phrase “get out of the box.” It’s everywhere. Whole industries have sprung up around it, including mine.
No one can deny that getting out of the box is a good thing to do. Seems like a no-brainer, eh? Kind of like helping little old ladies cross the street. Or tearing down the Berlin Wall. But before you start planning your heroic escape, answer me this: What the heck is the box, anyway? What is this so-called thing that keeps us so contained, confined, caged, trapped, claustrophobic, and otherwise unable to create?
Let’s start with the basics. A box has six sides, including the top and the bottom.
If we can understand what these six sides are, we’ll know what we’re dealing with — and this knowledge will improve our chances of getting out. Or, as Fritz Perls once said, “Awareness cures.” Let us proceed…
1. ASSUMPTIONS: Assumptions are the guesses we make based on our subjective interpretation of reality. They are short cuts. Lines drawn in the sand. We end up taking things for granted because we are either too lazy to get down to the root of things or too entranced by our own beliefs to consider an alternative.
