The Spiral of Creation

‘The Spiral of Creation: the natural path from wish to reality’ is an exceptionally practical book written by Marinus Knoope. In it, he describes the twelve steps to follow if you want to turn your wishes into reality. It’s a simple, compact model and it never ceases to amaze me how relatively unknown it is in management circles. And because I want to help spread the word, I’m going to make his model the main topic of this article.

I will outline the 12 steps you have to follow if you want to make your wishes materialise. There’s one model for achieving your personal wishes and one for achieving business goals. And there’s also something called a negative spiral, which starts with being worried and ends with you becoming stressed. It’s all there in his book. Unfortunately it’s only available in Dutch… sorry about that!

Step 1: Wishing

What do you need to be able to fulfil your wishes? Well, to start with, you’ll need a wish! A wish you discovered somewhere in your inner being. A real wish is positively formulated and gives you lots of energy. You’ll need this energy, because there’s another 11 steps you have to go through! But don’t worry just now about how you’re going to realise this wish, that will all become clear later.

Step 2: Imagining

What does the end result of your wish look like? What do you see in your mind’s eye? What will its impact be? In this phase you’ll be visualising your wish. It’s important here to focus attention on a tangible end result, you don’t need to visualise the path you’ll be taking (with whom, in what sequence, etc.) but it’s not against the rules!

Step 3: Believing

The next important step is for you to believe in your wish (and its visualisation). If you don’t believe in it, who will?! A clear image from the previous step will help you here. If you have any doubts at this point, think hard about why you’re having doubts. Do you doubt your wish or do you doubt yourself? If you doubt yourself, be aware that you don’t have to do everything yourself. If your wish is anchored in integrity you’ll always find people who will want to help you.

Step 4: Sharing

Now it’s time to share your wish. Bring all your imagination and belief into your wish and express your wish. The more enthusiasm you can put into this process, the stronger your message will be. But don’t expect everyone to be enthusiastic straight away. Acknowledge that people will be responding to your wish, and not to you as a person. Embrace the people who share your enthusiasm, they can be your allies in the next step.

Step 5: Researching

Now you’re going to look for ideas, people, information and things that can help you. In this step you’re no longer asking yourself whether your wish is realistic. Because you already believe it is (step 3). But now you will be exploring how your wishes can be achieved and what assistance you’ll need and from whom. Remember here that the art of life is not to be able to do everything or to want to. Surround yourself with people who can do what you’re wishing for, or who have already done it, both inside and outside your own private and professional networks.

Step 6: Planning

Up till now the creation process has taken place in the world of words and images. We now need a technique that will transform your wish into reality. This technique is called planning. Planning takes place on the line between imagination and reality. What you plan has a strong tendency to actually materialise!

Step 7: Deciding

Based on the plan from the previous step, in collaboration with your partners you will now make a choice: are we going to do this? Deciding is a difficult step if you haven’t consciously taken the previous steps (imagining, believing, sharing, researching and planning). If you’ve carried out all the previous steps with the right amount of focus (including involving your partners), then you will be able to gradually move in the direction of your decision (and choices).

Step 8: Acting

Now it’s time for the ‘real’ work. Based on your plans, you make a start. You act, you put everything into it. You explore, use and develop your own talents and that of your partners. According to what you’ve defined in your plans, step for step you will start your journey on the path to converting your wish into reality.

Step 9: Persevering

So you’ve prepared thoroughly but in practice you find you’re still being confronted with unexpected problems. It takes longer than you thought. You’re lacking certain practical skills. Someone falls ill unexpectedly or agreements aren’t kept. But you don’t let yourself get discouraged! After all, you know what your goal is and how much you want to achieve it. You’re going to persist. That means falling down and then getting up again. Persevering is the step in which your belief (step 3) is tested. So watch his short film about how Chinese bamboo grows; you see nothing for four years, and then…!

Step 10: Receiving

For a lot of people, receiving is the most difficult step in the whole creation process. We’re typically better at yearning for a new success than enjoying a success we’ve already achieved. But enjoying your success gives you more energy, making you function better. And that’s not just fine for you but also for the people around you! Get your partners involved in the receiving. Accept the compliments and pass them on.

Step 11: Appreciating

After receiving your success openly, it’s time to enjoy the indirect consequences of your wish. Who did you meet along the way, what have you learned, how have you developed? In this step, you also look at the areas that didn’t go that well. What frustrations did you encounter? What were you afraid of? Now’s the time to clear these kinds of things up.

Step 12: Resting

Once you’ve reaped the rewards and taken pleasure in them, you can slowly start to relax. The circle is complete. It’s now time for reflection through stillness. This is when new wishes will materialise. If you stay within yourself for long enough, more and more new desires will make themselves known to you. You will discover what you really want in this life, and the whole creation process will start right from the beginning again.

Do you feel like doing some homework? Then reserve fifteen minutes of your time to reflect on whether you go through all these 12 steps whenever you try to turn your wish (or project) into reality. How good are you, for example, in persevering? And did you work hard enough on your belief to get the result you wanted (steps 1 through 3)? Or how good are you in the last three steps? Can you – or do you dare to – really enjoy your achievements, or do you just get on with the next project straight away? I’m really curious to know which insights you gain and what effect this has on you achieving your existing and future wishes!

Enjoy your creations!

Over de auteur

• 27 september 2011
/ door
• Marco Buschman

Ik ben een energieke en uitdagende leiderschapsexpert, team- en executive coach, internationaal facilitator, spreker en auteur van de bestseller Verbindend Vermogen. Ik richt me op de (door)ontwikkeling van het verbindend vermogen van leidinggevenden, executives en managementteams in binnen- en buitenland. In mijn optreden pak ik vragen praktisch en oplossingsgericht aan. Klanten omschrijven mijn stijl als optimistisch, daadkrachtig, invoelend, gepassioneerd, resultaatgericht en inspirerend.Lees verder