Innovate Around the Core
I work alongside some industry innovators. It's exciting, challenging and sometimes exhausting work. Innovation isn't exclusively creation. Often, it's simply doing something that's already been done in a new way or having new ideas about how something can be done. The key here is "do, doing, done". There is a lot of motion involved with innovation...not just thoughts, brainstorms, meetings, conference calls, dreams, wishes...there is action, always.
Admittedly there have been times that this innovative work has gotten the best of me. I have been frustrated at the enormous amount of detail and testing that's involved. I have wanted to take a break and sometimes, I have even questioned if all this doing is right.
We can all relate to these emotions, doubts, and questions about the time we spend at work, but there is little in life that compares to doing a thing that creates a new something that's aligned with your gifts and talents and interests. It's too costly to be innovative about something that doesn't stir your pot. And it's a waste of time to recreate the wheel.
I haven't always worked innovatively. There have been many years that I've worked jobs to make money, not because it was aligned with my core values and drive. And it's largely because of those jobs that I was able to discover what I didn't want to do. Discovery of your interests can easily happen by default, by doing what you don't like in order to hone down what you do. For me, it wasn't specifically fitness at first, but I did know that I wanted to work with people and move and learn and teach. Understanding my core is what has kept me interested in work and from where I find energy and expansion, even when I'm fatigued.
“Innovation isn’t necessarily creation. Sometimes it’s simply doing something that’s already been done in a new way or having new ideas about how something can be done. ”
When I first started teaching fitness, the standard core exercise was the crunch. We did hundreds of them in a class and felt the localized burn in the belly that we hoped would somehow translate into either strength or beauty or both. Now, several years later, you'll be hard pressed to see much crunching going on in a group fitness class. Instead, we have entire classes devoted to core training, mostly without crunches! We didn't create a new system of training, we just started training for movement instead of mass.
That kind of innovation, or doing something in a new way, can happen at any moment in your life. Discovering what turns you on doesn't take mountains of data, years of study or hours of therapy. It can be as simple as deciding to spend time listening to your core. What is the center of you speaking? Are you willing to look at your life in a new way, or think about what you're doing now with new ideas? Then, are you willing to do something about it? Innovation starts with a desire for action, for newness, for change, and it is usually settled down deep in your core. I hope you'll take some time to dig it out and do it.
