Get Out of Your Lane: (There Is No Lane)
You've likely heard the criticism that some people “can't see the forest for the trees.”
In my work, the far more common problem is that people stop being able to see the trees as soon as you tell them it's a forest.
What do I mean? Well, we latch onto a label: an identity, narrative, perspective… and then all the questions that we could be asking about who we are and what we do disappear under a thousand unseen assumptions.
And those assumptions keep us stuck.
I spoke about this recently in an interview on the top-rated Design Better podcast. I mentioned that designers see things differently than the rest of us. For example, a pen’s never just a pen; it’s a combination of creative choices — endlessly redesign-able.
I asked: What would it look like to bring that design perspective not just to a product or initiative, but to your very life? To your career or industry? Your relationships? This is where creativity shines.
Design and Redesign // The Danger of ‘One Story’
I’ll be real with you: When I was a singer/songwriter, I thought of myself as an incredibly creative person. And in many ways, I was!
But the truth is, during that career, I had one story that I knew how to tell about my life. ONE.
That one story was that I was a singer/songwriter.
That a music career was my only path to fulfillment.
For all the creativity I cultivated and shared every single day, I did not know how to be creative about my own life.
And I didn’t even realize this, until that one story — that one identity — crumbled in a perfect storm of burnout and major depression.
For weeks, I lay in bed — feeling as if I were watching my one identity, my “only path to fulfillment,” drain out of me. I didn’t know who I was, or if I had a future. I couldn’t imagine one.
There is no “inevitable.”
At that darkest point of my life, I came face to face with the glaring gaps in my own creativity.
I knew how to apply creativity to literal “art,” but not to my life, my industry, my future. So I had to learn how, and fast!
How do we learn to see each puzzle piece of ourselves and our world, of our work and our industry, without assuming that those pieces must fit together in some known, inevitable way?
Listen: Humans love certainty. It can give us a sense of being anchored, secure. There’s no shame in wanting or seeking it.
But our desire for certainty can also keep us stuck and constrained, following a template that doesn’t suit us.
When my template was destroyed, I learned that everything can be reimagined.
That there is no “inevitable.”
That trees can be trees in infinite possible ways; “forest” is just one descriptor.
I learned that you don’t have to stay in your lane. There IS no lane.
What Is Creativity?
The good news is, once you’ve learned that everything can be reimagined, you can’t un-learn it. (Though I do often need reminders!)
You start to see Creativity everywhere:
In the community health worker who sees a garden where there’s now an empty lot
In the poet’s reimagining of what a memorial is and means
In the leader who’s exploring what “complete wellbeing” would truly mean for their employees
In the physician referring a patient to a music concert, photography class, or zoo
These folks are out of their lanes, redesigning their worlds. That is creativity.
Creativity is the capacity to question and reimagine “What Is.”
And it applies to everything.
I cannot go back to a sense that anything is fixed.
That idea died. If it hadn’t, it would have killed me.
And I want you to know this, too:
Nothing is fixed. No identity, no industry, no system, no product, no career, no personality, no story. No-thing.
UNASKED QUESTIONS
Years ago, in the grind of the music industry, I didn’t know that my growth was on the other side of questions that I didn’t yet have, that I couldn’t yet ask.
I had to learn those questions through a life-changing crash.
My work now is to help other people discover their own unasked questions, without having to go through a similar crash.
The truth is, our unquestioned identities, processes, goals, and norms are critical sites for creativity.
They are bright exit ramps off the beaten path.
They show us how to get out of our lane.
So: What about you?
What questions are you not asking about your identity, career, future?
What would happen if you saw them from a designer’s perspective?
Hold Labels Loosely.
“A pen’s never just a pen.” A life’s never just a life.
Our wellbeing – as well as the work we seek to do, the world we hope to build together – these all require that we hold labels loosely.
That we see the trees, long after someone tells us it’s a forest.
That we ask more questions, especially of our most cherished beliefs.
That we place ourselves intentionally, again and again, in the space of curiosity, with that design perspective: Is this the way it has to be? Is this inevitable?
So here’s my challenge to you:
Choose one area of your life or work where you feel stuck or limited, and ask, "Is this the way it has to be? What if I approached this differently?"
Then: hold the door open for all the potential answers: as audacious, as creative, as luminous or difficult as they may be.
Listen to me: Your growth is on the other side of that door.
It’s on the other side of the questions you haven’t asked, the lane you haven’t left, the answers you haven’t discovered.
Don’t wait for a crash.
Your door is here, right now. You can step through.
Get Out of Your Lane
If you want help recognizing where you’re stuck or limited, or where you might need a dose of creativity and bold questions, reach out. I speak, consult, and coach on exactly this—and I’d love to help.
You might also appreciate this free ebook about art’s impacts on health, which has helped a lot of creatives leap out of their lanes.
And this blog (and free workbook!) about Uncertainty and the Creative Life will help get some balls rolling.
Everything can be reimagined.