Innovation: Why We Need It, Want It, and Fear It

Innovation is a hot topic right now. The search is on for the next new thing, the new business frontier. We certainly do need to innovate, as our infrastructure appears to be falling apart. We need to make changes in how we “think life is,” for one thing. Survival of the fittest is only a paradigm, a way of society that we have all created.

Human beings are creative enough to create a whole new way of life once they unite their mind with their hearts and get committed. The challenge is being self-aware enough to “get committed.”

If we don’t understand how our amazing brain can hijack our attention and keep us focused on “worse case scenarios,” we will continue to cling to the known world.

The known world is certainly not going to bring you the next grand idea to change the world for the better. In fact, there are many constructs that need to be deconstructed to give space to change.

The “good old days” seem to be just out of reach, yet people persist in reaching backwards, even though they are grasping and clinging to the very thing that is currently keeping them stuck. We want change, and the writing is on the wall that we need it… So why do we fear it?

I was reading an article about the psychological bias against creativity last week that gave some research evidence around this phenomenon. Do you realize that when you want something yet fear it that it creates a type of “dis-integration” in your psyche? And then we wonder why so many people are stressed out and why “dis-ease” is on the rise. Folks, let’s open our eyes and see the elephant in the room. People are afraid of change, and one of the factors that is causing so much pain and suffering is that we completely “mindlessly” manage our feelings.

Most people are so out of touch with them that they are terrified to feel. It doesn’t help that the images we all too commonly see tell us that we are defective in some way, victims of life, or that security comes from micromanaging the universe and other people. All three of these ideas are nonsense. We won’t be able to access our innovation and creativity until we begin to learn how to address our psychological bias, which comes from feeling fear at the thought of change. I’ve learned to change my perception about feelings and emotions, and I’ve consciously come to see them as important via neuroscience and intuitively. I’ve come to better consciously understand what they are.

When you understand that they are tied to your perception and how emotional pain and fear is primarily “in your head,” you can begin to change how they shut you down. This is huge in our current environment of change and innovation. Since feelings and perception are so intertwined, you can miss opportunities right in your face, but you can’t see them due to FEAR – Fictitious Evidence Affecting Reality. So, yes, we need innovation; we want innovation. Yet, if we are going to see innovation and experience it, we are going to have to stop fearing it.