How to be Creative

How to be Creative

This topic has been showing up a bunch for me in the last couple days. in a number of ways, so I’m sharing.

We are inherently creative beings. We all have things we like to make. For some of us, it’s cooking, or woodworking, being handy around the house. For some of us, it’s music, playing an instrument, singing, writing songs or pieces. For some of us it is art. Photography, graphics, painting or drawing, or otherwise making images. For some of us it is sculpture. For some it crafting.

For some of us, our favorite creativity is a different kind of thing, where we don’t end up with a product, like problem solving. Parents are using this kind of creativity all the time.

I like to write, and I have several things I write every day, or mostly every day. I write contemplations, appreciations, I make up a secret name of the day, I write songs and poems, including haiku and limericks.

The point is, creativity isn’t, as I used to believe, something that drops on our heads from time to time, inspiring us, but a skill we can develop by using it a lot.

How am I creative? What do I like to do? What makes me innovate?

By using our creativity a lot, doing things we enjoy, trying new creative activities, we make a nice pathway in our brains to our creative places, and then when we need it for something big, or unexpected, or very, um, interesting, we can get there easily and enjoy coming up with solutions or innovations, or substitutions.

I have had a lot of interesting and new things happening lately, and they have wreaked chaos on my tidy routines. In order to get done the things I want to get done, I have to find new ways to do them, new times to work on them, new approaches, new attitudes, shift my goals around, and let my expectations get soft.

That was a huge part of feeling more creative for me; expectations.

Some of us have expectations of failure when we try something new. Not in the “I know I will screw this up a bunch before I get competent at it,” but the “I can’t do this. It’s too hard for me!” kind of expectation. So we quit without giving ourselves time and patience and practice.

Some of us have expectations of instant success when we try something new. When it doesn’t work out the way we think it should, we get mad and blame-y and criticize the activity or the teacher, or our environment, or the materials, or something else that isn’t us. We decide it isn’t worth our time without giving it a fair trial.

When we approach a new endeavor with openness, a willingness to mess up, a willingness to try again, we find that we can enjoy the process, and not just the product as we imagine it will be.

Why am I willing? How am I open to new experiences? What makes me try again? Why do I have compassion for my new self?

Experts get that way through lots of practice, failures, and successes. These experiences allow them to integrate the process and then, when we see them doing it, we say, “Wow, that looks easy!”

Someday, I will be able to juggle. In the meantime, I am getting really good at creative dropping.

How have I changed from expecting instant success to appreciating the experience of being creative?

(c) Pam Guthrie 2014 all rights reserved 08072014