There’s always one delegate at the beginning of every storytelling workshop who confesses: “I’m no good at telling stories.” They’re showing their ANTs to us – Automatic Negative Thinking.
This kind of thinking makes for self-fulfilling prophecy – they’ve already convinced themselves they won’t be any good. If this were an exam, chances are they wouldn’t have studied hard because of this thinking and so are unlikely to do well. But everything could have been so very different.
Equally, we regularly hear people saying I’m not creative. I not good at coming up with new ideas. Again this is ANTs showing its ugly face. Creativity isn’t limited to certain people – it’s certain people who limit their creativity.
So we recommend that our delegates leave their ANTs outside the training room. We offer a positive training experience – both supportive and challenging. And give encouragement to each and every delegate to ‘give it a go’ and ‘surprise themselves’. Which they do when they drop their ANTs, show some bravery and open up.
And we suggest the next time you walk into a brainstorming session you do the same.
There’s no room for these ANTs in a world where anything maybe possible.
But not all ants are bad news. We can learn so much from the attitude of the insect ant – they’re smart, productive and have a ‘can do’ attitude.
And as for ants in your pants? It’s good to get a bit fidgety sometimes and not be content to sit still. You never know what may be out there waiting for you if you get off your backside!
Posted by Sally Clare on Friday, June 19th, 2015 in Features › News ›
Tags: self-belief; creativity; storytelling;positive thinking;