For many people, the topic of creativity is very scary. There is so much judgment, internal and external, around whether you are creative or not. So many of us spend too much energy worrying that we aren’t creative or creative enough that we don’t pursue our talents. I am from the school of thought that everyone is creative. Creativity isn’t only about being an excellent artist or someone who knows how to draw. The key to creativity is finding what unlocks your creative spirit. For some it is easy to know what activities or areas of study bring out their creativity. For many it is unknown. Depending on what you were exposed to as a child and throughout your life you may have stumbled upon your creative area. But you may not have found your creativity yet. It’s not too late.
That’s’ right, it is never too late to go searching for what pulls out your creativity. And for that matter your creative outlet may have changed over time. Perhaps it is drawing but you never tried it before. And perhaps the type of drawing is the key component—maybe you are more of a graphics artist or maybe you are more of a geometric shapes drawer, or maybe still life is your calling. Perhaps your medium is oil, watercolor, charcoal, collage, clay or metal. Maybe it’s not arts or crafts per se but creative thinking. Designing crosswords or other word puzzles might be your skill. Writing is another creative area where there are many different avenues from short stories to memoir to blogging to explore.
I’ve read a lot of books on the creative writing process by authors of all kinds. They mostly convey that rain or shine, ups or downs, you should write every day. Stick to a schedule and before you know it, you’ll have written a novel or completed your book. And it is true that when I sit down and “just begin” to write, words flow quite easily. But I find that when I am having a hard day that I have the greatest difficulty just sitting down to write. That is the practice, it is to almost force yourself to sit down and write whether or not you create garbage or something wonderful.
You may feel like creativity comes and goes in waves or sparks or not at all. But really how creativity comes about is by allowing for stuff to happen. And one of the best ways to allow for stuff to happen is to put time into your schedule to do something that draws creativity from you. Whatever that is—writing, painting, drawing, beading, choreography, math problems or photography—if you don’t make time in your life to do these things, then you are missing out on chances for creativity.
Be kind to yourself. Don’t pre-judge whether you are creative or not. Go on a journey to explore different ways into creativity. Don’t rule out anything and also look for clues from your life when you tried activities and thought they were fun or exciting or challenging in a good way. Then once you have found something that stirs you, make time in your life on a regular basis to allow for the creativity energy to flow by doing your creative activity regularly. You don’t need to every share your output if you don’t want to. Being creative is about nourishing your soul, not necessarily about producing creative works for the public. No matter what anyone has ever said to you in the past, you are a wondrous creative human.
Xoxo Rachel
Wondrance 