When creatives talk about themselves and their habits, one set of terms that seems to come up a lot is "left brain" and "right brain." I've seen people describe themselves as completely one or the other, but frankly, unless the person in question is an extreme medical outlier, that's simply not true. Just about every human being uses both hemispheres of their brain every day.
And yes, I realize that when people say, "Oh, I'm totally right brained," they're not being literal (which would be very left-brained of them). But the language we use about our abilities, our capacity and our functioning can be very powerful; it can open up options to us or close them off sight-unseen. If someone thinks of themselves as being solely right-brained, they're constructing barriers to behaviors they perceive as being left-brained, no matter how useful those behaviors may be or how well that person can already perform those behaviors.
We're getting dry here, and I know the right brain loves itself a metaphor, so here's an example near and dear to my heart. I'm a mesoendomorph, which means I have a big squishy body with a solid layer of muscle underneath the squishyness. My body is very well-suited to Muay Thai kickboxing, which I practice several times a week. My body is *not* very well-suited to running; the body of a runner is much lighter and more streamlined than mine. I often say, "I am not a runner."
But that's not completely true: I am certainly capable of running (especially if I think there's a snake nearby). And most kickboxing classes begin with an aerobic warmup, which usually includes running. So there I am, with a body that's built for kickboxing, doing something that my body isn't ideally designed for. But the bit of running that I do helps me with the kickboxing, helps me do it longer and with more speed, and helps me catch my breath afterward.
So it is with organizing, sorting and planning. These activities might not be the favorite things of creative folks, but I promise you, you can do them. You might have told yourself you can't do these things so often that you actually believe it, but it's simply not true. The good news is not only can you do these things, doing them just a bit on a regular basis can bolster your creative pursuits tremendously.
My upcoming eBook "How to Harness a Hobgoblin" will talk more about how to grow accustomed to doing these left-brain activities. If you're not willing to wait that long to learn how to get and keep yourself Sorted, give me a call or drop me a line.
How have you traditionally thought of yourself, as right-brained or left-brained? (Or neither, or both?) Talk to me about your perceptions of your thought processes in the comments.

