Shall We Improvise?

  

        

Shall We Improvise?

Dreaming of a well-organized life, stress free? When was the last time that everything went exactly as planned?  Good luck. And in our crazy, cattywumpus Covid world there is very little that is stable and predictable.  The reality is that we are improvising most of the time. So, why not take a few tips from the professionals?  

I’ve spent a wonderful career teaching improvisation around the globe and across ages and professions including thousands of Stanford students. I’m not talking about improv comedy, although some study this work to perform on stage. Improvisors are able to create full length plays without a script because they are operating on a few simple, yet profound maxims.  My tilt is using the foundational principles of improvisation as a Mindset for a meaningful life.  These principles can help you become a better listener, a more grateful partner and a more confident you. Here are the four pillars of improv:

Attention

Acceptance

Appreciation

Action

Attention is our superpower. Never take it for granted. Use it to improve your life. Begin to take control of what you are noticing.  Notice what you notice.  And if your mind drifts off into rumination, anxiety, or daydreams return your attention to the world you inhabit.  Notice the detail of that world.  And, if you can, savor the moment.  Isn’t this tangerine succulent? What a nice breeze this afternoon? “What am I doing right now?  Scrambling eggs.  Don’t they look delicious.” It is common to walk around lost in thought.  Start the habit of noticing more.  Shift your attention from self to other.  Become a better listener.  Observe your world more deeply.

Acceptance is the foundation of a satisfying life.  The improvisor’s basic rule is to say yes to all offers.  Of course, this isn’t the same thing as liking whatever comes your way.  Acceptance implies a default perspective of opening to what life brings.  We say yes—AND.  This means to build upon the reality you find yourself in.  Life may bring you an unexpected illness or professional surprise.  The improvisor says: “Now how can I work with this?  How can I find the good and make this into something interesting--even a win?  We build upon our capacity to take a constructive and positive attitude toward life.  

Appreciation is the capacity to “find the good and praise it.” This is the life skill of constantly asking the question: “What am I receiving now and from whom?” I am a great believer in radical gratitude. This involves more than the current fad of thinking of ‘three things I’m grateful for.’ Ordinarily we only feel gratitude for things we like or that make us happy.  What about all of those services and things that keep our lives going? Even the ones we pay for . . .

Thanking people for work well done and for things we like and to those who are nice and cheerful and thoughtful should be a no brainer. What I’m suggesting today is something fundamental; I want us all to take a deeper look at the support we receive—all the time—from countless individuals.  Who or what makes your life possible right now?  This computer allows me to write this article.  Thanks to those who designed and created it, and thanks to my husband who gave it me as a gift.  When we really start to notice our world (see Attention above) we can discover that we are “thirsty, swimming in the lake ” . . . that is, everything we need is around us if we simply pay attention to it.  Appreciation takes an ordinary life and makes it extraordinary.

 

Action creates our world.  What we do matters.  While we can’t control feelings per se we can always control our behavior.  Feeling a little grumpy and sad?  Try doing something physical . . . clean out one shelf in the pantry.  Sweep the sidewalk.  Fold the laundry.  Take a long, spirited walk and notice the colors of the season.  Or turn your appreciation into action:  write a thank you note by hand and mail it.  Improvisors know that we can take a step into the unknown to discover where we are going.  We can act without knowing the outcome; and by starting anywhere we get the engine running and in no time we find a direction.  The improvisors' motto is :  ready, fire, aim!    Maybe it is not so crazy to begin something without a clear or complete plan. Uncertainty is natural.  If we take a first step in any direction we are in a new position to see what is possible. 

 

The practice of improvising our lives teaches us to trust reality and have confidence in our ability to manage challenges.  And, in the act of improvising we are likely to make some mistakes.  This is natural.  Applaud yourself when it doesn’t work out.  Learn something from it and redirect your focus.  Mistakes are so often our friends.

 

And a final piece of improv advice is to “aim for average” . . . Use your ordinary mind to do or create what is obvious to you.  Relax your “clever” muscles.  You will do better if you give up trying so hard.  Be average.  It’s enough.

 

I’ve found that the maxims of improvising turn out to be valuable life advice.  You might seek out an improv class to test this thesis.  Even if you are sure that you have no talent for improvising you will likely be surprised when you try.  Or you may find some ideas and exercises in my book, Improv Wisdom, Don’t Prepare, Just Show Up, 2005, Bell Tower Books, Random House.  It’s available as an audio and Ebook and it’s in nine languages including a Braille edition in Chinese.  It’s full of tips and exercises.

 

And you have my wish for a life of many happy improvisations.  Keep on saying YES to life.

The Four Acceptances

The Four Acceptances

Metaphors can provide windows of light.  Improvisation, about which I have taught and written for decades, is a useful lens.  In a recent TED X talk at Stanford, Dan Klein, my successor in the classroom at the University, gave his audience a five-minute crash course in what it means to improvise.  “We are all improvisers already,” he declared. And then he compressed the whole of improv into three minutes.  First we look at offers.

Life is full of offers.  In fact, we can see everything as an offer, from “would you like a cup of tea?” to the expression on your boss’s face, the weather, the price of flour, the next election, a sunny day, a graduation, an automobile accident.  Everything is an offer.  No exceptions. Reality comes in the form of stuff that happens, and people with whom we interact.  Our job is to step up to these offers and accept them.  (And then to work with them. . . .)

The role of improv is to teach us how to accept.

There are four “Acceptances.”  

1. Accepting the ideas and offers of your partner

Training to improvise begins with the crazy premise that your partner is a genius (and always right) and that your job is to first notice what they are offering, ingest and accept whatever it is and then build on it by adding something.  The time-honored phrase for this is Yes-AND.  We discover that if we block or deny or otherwise argue with the offer we are dead in the water.  In order to go forward together we need to be on the same page.  

So improvisers accept what their partner gives them and works with it. Period.

1. Accepting your own ideas

This step stops many of us.  Accepting one’s own ideas can be a challenge.  How quick we are to judge our thoughts and actions and find them wanting.  Improv requires that we cultivate the same generous mind we use with our partners in the Yes-And phase of the work.  We must say YES to whatever our mind brings us, no matter how odd or unwanted.  Each of us is a fountainhead of ideas if we can only learn to open to and accept those first thoughts.  We learn how to give our “editor” a paid vacation and instead sign up our personal cheerleader:  “Now that’s an idea . . . GO with it!”  As artists and parents and colleagues we are often the first to close the box on our own ideas.  Improv games train us to embrace whatever shows up in the in basket of our imagination.  Give up trying to find “a good idea” and work with the idea that is most readily found.  Then work to make it good.

3.Accepting what life brings you

Accepting what life brings you is the application of this improv maxim to everyday.  It implies, of course, that we stay open no matter what the content and to use the positive mindset we have been cultivating on the improv stage as we maneuver life’s ups and downs.  It asks us to continually refresh our capacity to stay open to offers and to situations that aren’t easy or pleasant.

4.Accepting the unacceptable

It’s possible that this instruction may appear unacceptable. The fourth acceptance is really a subset of the advice to keep the improv attitude alive during our day to day, even when that stretches our psyche.  We will all meet challenges that seem to defy common sense, justice or fairness.  We will all encounter the unacceptable at some point.  The laundry list of these is sobering: untimely death, lawsuits, accidents, abandonment, terrorism . . . well, we don’t really need to identify the details.  What I may find unacceptable may differ from your list.  But, make no mistake: a human life includes such events.  

A teacher of mine years ago gave me the koan:  “Accept the unacceptable.”  I was meant to ponder the enigmatic meaning of this phrase.  Well, of course, one should not accept such things.  And, clearly, there are situations where acceptance means challenging or fighting for what one believes is right.  Still, in order to be a proactive combatant one needs to truly accept the reality of the circumstance in order to take constructive action and develop a strategy for responding.  This does not imply passivity.  It’s a very active instruction.

I suggest that you tuck this koan away.  Some day, perhaps when you least expect it you will be faced with the unacceptable.  Pull it out then.  It can help.

May 24, 2012