So, you want to be more creative…

You’ve lingered and marveled over other artists and wondered just where they get their amazingly original ideas.  You make promises to yourself that you will spend more time with your creative passions, but at the end of the day, you are too exhausted to think any thoughts, let alone something fresh and new.

How do these creative artists pull this off when you are struggling to get through the day?

Maybe They’re Just Born That Way…

Maybe they are. Or…maybe they’re not. There is a lot of talk that genetics plays a large role in our natural creative ability. You’ve either “Got it” or you don’t. I even read this week about two genes related to the amount of artistic and scientific creativity a person will have. According to the reports, between 22 and 36 percent of the difference between people regarding creativity is genetic.

What About the Rest of US?

That leaves a high percentage of creative people that aren’t accounted for by genetics.

I don’t doubt that there is truth to the role of genetics. However, I believe that environment and lifestyle are part of the critical package. I also believe that whatever gifts we are born with, won’t amount to a hill of beans unless we cultivate the creative lifestyle and habits to actually produce a creative product or thought. A person born with only a smidge of creative talent, who develops the mindsets, habits and systems to become innovative and creative in a functional way, will go farther than some poor highly-creative person who doesn’t have the where-with-all to do anything about their natural gifts.

I believe we can learn to cultivate our natural level of creativity and awaken more innovation if we want to.

Of course, wanting isn’t enough. you have to be aware of, and receptive to, the creativity that comes to you. That is the first step. Then, after that, you have to be committed to production of the creation.

Ideas with Wings

How many times have you had a brilliant idea? How many of those times did the idea fly out the window and become a distant memory before you ever took any action on it? How many times was the idea not even written down?

Brilliance, for most of us anyway, isn’t a stagnant condition of the spirit. It doesn’t linger, or wait around for you to get your act together, or have time for it.  It pops in, unexpected. Ideas have wings and they will flutter from person to person until somebody takes action on them and makes them happen.

Will that person be you? Or will somebody else step up to the plate before you do?

Here is a harsh truth that many creative souls don’t want to know about.

The ACTION of producing creativity requires strong self-discipline, strong guiding principles and vision, and an indomitable spirit of persistence.

Here is the good news. Those traits can be cultivated. Perhaps not overnight. (After all, one of those traits is persistence.) But, with time and commitment, you can cultivate the creativity that you have always dreamed of.

Cultivating Creativity

Here are some guidelines to help you increase the level of creativity in your life.

Live Life Wide-Awake. Creative thought comes to us all the time. However, many people simply aren’t listening. They are living numb, burnt-out to the incoming stimuli around them. They don’t hear the knock on their inner door when the Muses come calling. Practice being alert and present. Get tuned in to the little voices in your head that ask questions and are brainstorming all the time.

Show Up Put creative endeavors on your schedule. Make a date with creativity.  And don’t do all the talking…remember to listen too! Many people aren’t creative simply because they don’t invest the intention, time and energy toward thinking and doing creative things. Your future goes where your focus goes, but only if your focus takes action! Make doing, seeing and enjoying art, (In all its amazing forms) a high priority in your life.

Channel Your Inner Rebel The Status Quo is NOT creative. Break out of the habit of accepting everything at face value. Just because the Cool Kids said it has to be done this way, doesn’t make it right for all time. Today just might be the day to create something new and amazing. Ask WHY, ask WHY NOT, ask HOW and learn to question the rules. A lot of them are worth breaking.

Learn to Suck This is critical. You must be willing to suck at something before you will get good at it. Sucking is a part of growing. It takes courage and guts to suck and isn’t for wimps. Wimps do not usually suck because they never try. Try something new all the time and let your suckiness fly! It is in the failing that many of our best innovations have occurred.

Be Curious Make it a point to investigate life. Be all about discovery. When the brain is actively learning, it is also actively asking questions. Questions spur on new ideas. Curiosity is one of the most powerful doorways to innovation and creativity that there ever can be.

Discover the Power of What if Question EVERYTHING. What if the world was a triangle instead of a ball? How would that change our lives? Silly question? You bet! But it gets the imagination going, doesn’t it? It forces you to look at strange and new possibilities. Who knows! Maybe there is an entire Triangle World out there waiting to be discovered!

Connect with Your Inner Child Play. Just for the sake of playing. Children are creative without even trying. As a past Pre-school teacher, I can honestly say I have never met an uncreative three-year old. Adults stifle creativity. Children steep in it. They create with no agenda to produce great and awesome creations. They fingerpaint. They make awesome messes. Give your inner adult a break and play like a little child. Have fun.  Go where the spirit moves you. Remember how to pretend.

Claiming Your Creative Spirit

I believe, with ever fiber of my being, that every one of us has a creative gift. I believe that our creativity is a natural part of our spirit just waiting to be explored. I believe that creating is part of our purpose for existing. I believe we were made in the image of God, THE Creator, to create just the same way that magnificent source of all creation does. It is our god-given right to be creative. All we have to do is step into the power and make the effort.

Claim it. Believe in it. Become it. Be the artist you were meant to be.

Doing some of that…”Hmm..did I write that? Hmm. Wow..did I write that? Oh..gosh, yuck, did I write that??? And they still let me play in their sandbox?? Gosh, are they forgiving or what.

It’s humbling.

It is all in the name of working on THE BOOK. You know…THE Book. The one that we all have floating around in our heads that we say we are going to write but, we dabble a little here and there and some of it gets done and most of it doesn’t? Well, I went into my mental book closet today and started gathering up all of the stuff that I have already written and started to put it all together so I can actually see how much more work I have left to do.

It’s kind of like finally sitting down and paying your bills after weeks of just thinking about it. OR putting away all of the laundry that you had washed and just piled up wrinkled in the laundry baskets but never sorted or ironed. Why is it that the JUST FINISH IT is the hard part when you have already done the JUST DO IT part. I mean, I already wrote most of it. I already washed the laundry. Why is it so hard to put the darn clothes away and start to get things organized for the actual figuring out how to turn written words into a book?

I think its the same reason my closet doesn’t stay cleaned in real life either. I am a gatherer of life. An observer. I watch it, savor the moments, examine the expressions and the emotions of the people around me, I connect the dots, I wonder at the possibilities, I turn it over, watch as the snow-globe sprinkles out all of the magic that no one else sees, and then when all is finished-I put the moment aside. I record it, place it in the pile and like a child who waits for Santa, I turn my eyes to the next experience. I rarely look back. Unless forced to by a need that out ways my inborn drive to propel toward the future at warp speed. Now I want to compile all my essays and writing into THE BOOK. So that need to sit still and NOT create and just compile and task  and “to do” is a need greater then writing.

I am impatient with the past. I am impatient period. I don’t like chores that slow me down or make me look backward. Going back and working on words I’ve already written is like walking into yesteryear. I have something to say today. I’m SO NOT INTO THAT NOW.

This is where self-discipline comes in I guess.

I remember feeling like this around the 16th week of training for the marathon. I had fun when I was running 5, 7, 10, and 12 miles every weekend. Around 14 miles on Saturday morning I was grumbly. By the week I had to run 16 miles I was down right bitchy. Who’s bright idea was this anyhow?

Mine.

It usually is.

Everything I have ever wanted to achieve in life has had its moments that just stopped being fun. In fact, most of them had trials that could be considered pure hell. Every single one worth remembering has had something. Every single one. So…I didn’t expect that writing a book would be any different. Not really.

I don’t have to like doing my chores. But if I want to get through to the other side, I have to put my head down and charge through. Just finish the NOT FUN part of the tasks. Like putting the clean clothes away in the closet or figuring out what to do with the stacks of written work.  Get things organized. Spend the time figuring out what sections everything should go in. Line everything up all nice and pretty until it all looks good.

It’s time to put my inner kid in time out and put the grown up to work.

It’s time to get things done.

Welcome to our new home here at Life’s Little Inspirations. Isn’t it exciting? I feel as if I am walking around in my socks in a great big lighthouse mansion on the hills overlooking the ocean. Right now there are lots of empty rooms and so much open space that it seems like there is no way it will ever be filled up. There is lots of room to grow. Everything won’t be unveiled in a day or a week or even in a month so we will continue to shape and evolve and grow step by step into the space of our new home.

If you like the new design as much as I do, stop by and tell the Men with Pens because that stunning lighthouse and this website is the brainchild of Harrison McLeod and I couldn’t be happier with the work he and James did here. I did promise that I wouldn’t suffer from failure to launch syndrome so we are up and running while the paint dries and before we get all the furniture in and curtains up.

I am the great believer in baby steps after all. I don’t believe in waiting until everything is perfect because perfect isn’t coming. I have a lot to learn and I will continue to grow and learn and evolve just as I have been doing, right along side the rest of our community! One step at a time and the first step is to open the doors and welcome you all in so we can get back to the business of posting on the blog and keeping in touch!

As far as the future goes here, the first thing that you can expect is that our past will remain intact. I will continue to post at the same rate and with the same schedule as I did before at the old place. Our theme and the focus of what we are all about will stay the same as well. Making a positive difference in the lives of others is still my passion and my primary number one focus.  Writing and sharing inspirational messages and insights to help people on their path will still be my number one goal.

So what will be new? The new site allows me the ability to expand into a website that also showcases additional resources and opportunities. In addition, I will be able to highlight services that will become availiabe to those who are interested or in need of them. I am also excited to share that I am working on the book verson of Life’s Little Inspirations, which will be available here as well.

Some of this will come soon, some in awhile, baby steps and long term goals are my map to success but rest assured, my passionate goal is posted where we all can see it every day and I will be heading toward it with radar focus. CAN, WILL and BELIEVE!

PS. Don’t forget to subscribe here at the new address so you don’t miss anything. I am so glad to be making this journey with all of you.

Want more of Life’s Little Inspirations? Want to be a part of our fun community? Please join us in the comment section with your thoughts and comments and subscribe for free with the orange Icon in the top right hand corner. We are glad to have you here!

A musician must make music, an artist must paint, a poet must write, if he is to be ultimately at peace with himself. What a man can be, he must be.
~Abraham Maslow

 

During my hairdresser days, I had a continuing conversation with some clients that went something like this.

CLIENT: I want something new and different. Something really exciting. I’m bored with my hair. It always looks the same.

ME: OK, let’s see, you always wear your hair straight and brown and shoulder length, how about we bring it up around chin level, right at the base of the neck, put in some long layers to give it some bounce and add in some highlights to brighten it up. That will be very different and will frame your face and the highlights will bring out the color of your eyes.

CLIENT: Oh no, I couldn’t cut my hair short. It has to stay long. And…I don’t know about layers, none of my friends have layers, I wouldn’t know how to take care of them. Highlights…that’s too radical. I’m too scared. How about a trim instead.

Uhuh…no change for her…

Change is difficult for a lot of people. Daring to be different than everyone else is difficult. Standing up for your beliefs in a crowd of people who believe differently than you is very difficult. And not so politically correct depending on who you are, where you are and what the circumstances are in today’s society. We are getting used to quietly slinking away. Taking our thoughts and ideas and beliefs and going home. We get on the computer and share with strangers behind screens instead. It feels safer. We aren’t as exposed. We can control our exposure. Say what we want them to hear.

Except its boring. We live in a lukewarm world with everyone conforming to the sameness of corporate structure. We create matching neighborhoods, strip-malls and towns and duplicate them all over the country, and follow society’s rules, passing the time with idle chatter. We say nothing of value at all for fear that we will offend. It is a mindless, weary, aging way to waste an existence.

Conformity is dangerous. It’s addictive. It sneaks up on you.

One day you were young and full of dreams and plans and hopes and ideals and then little by little someone whispered in your ear “Psst…that’s not what we DO here. WE don’t wear purple boots, we wear brown shoes” So off you went to the brown shoe store. Then another day it was “Psst…We don’t believe in that anymore…” and away went the dreams, the hopes and the plans until you forgot that you had been dreaming…The next thing you know you are all decked out in your beiges and browns with your safe hair cut and all purpose shoes. One day blended in to the next and before you know it there is a school reunion notice showing up at the door.

Where did it go? Where did YOU go? Well, take a deep look. You are in there. Sandwiched somewhere between the serving others and making sure they are OK and working to make ends meet. If you made it a point to let go of all the unconscious conforming for others and really woke up and paid attention to your OWN needs, hopes, and desires, what would they be?  Do you know? Has it been a long time since you have dug down deep and asked yourself-do I want this for ME or do I want this because I THINK its what I OUGHT to do.

Our true selves never really go away. They lie in wait for the day when they get a turn. A turn to be set free and live the life that THEY were created for. Each one of us has a special gift, a destiny to unfold, a dream to bring to life if we will take the time to discover it and then pull it out and make it happen.

Shine a light on it. Be unique, take a chance, dare to be different, authentic, one of a kind. Be interesting. Bring a little color into an otherwise gray world.

Crystal at BigBrightBulb has sent out a mission for all of us to share our dreams and goals. I have many. Lots of family ones, one I joke about with my best friend Jackie K. where we talk about ending up as two old ladies living on a beach somewhere warm selling artwork to the beachcombers as they go by.  Of course, now that I am happily married, that dream is evolving. That’s OK too. Dreams do that sometimes. But when the dream is more than just a friendly daydream, when the dream is a vision of how you want your life to be, when the dream grabs you by the heart and won’t let you go, then that has become more than a dream. That dream requires ACTION. That dream now has built in the required ingredient of PASSION.

Passion is what turns dreams into action. Passion is what happens when people DON’T conform, but seek their OWN unique vision and follow their own authenticity. You will never find passion if you have a dream brought on by a should.

Ok Crystal here is mine:

My Passionate dream: To grow Life’s Little Inspirations into a website that offers books, motivational speaking, workshops, coaching, and training classes on how to work and live an inspired, profitable and happy  life.

I took my first step today. I registered my domain name. And I wrote out a huge list of everything I wanted. It was very long. I’m on my way.

What are you doing to make your passionate dreams happen?

It began innocently enough. Sitting and twirling my swing, I shared stories and adventures with my imaginary friend in the side yard of the old clapboard house of my youth. She listened with great interest and never interrupted. In time, illustrations followed and the stories grew in depth and character.

When we moved into a country farmhouse during my middle school years, I created paper doll people and paper doll cut-out villages to go with my stories and the world that my characters lived in. They took up residence in my bedroom closet. As my clothes were strewn about the floor, there was plenty of room there and every day after school I would join them on the closet floor, and create for them a brand new world. Their lives were full of adventures. They were sassy and talked back. I never did. They traveled the world and saw everything. I lived in a town where all the kids went to school on the same bus. They wore exotic clothes and were popular and had bright shiny hair and flashing, expressive eyes. My stringy dishwater brown hair hung in my dull brown eyes, shielding me to hide my shyness.

We moved again, (and again, and again) making the process of building lasting friendships a difficult one. I was friendly, yet uncommitted. My head was either buried in reading a book or writing a book. I lived inside the pages of fantasy. Inspiration came from reading every book I could get my hands on. When I did need to relate to someone, it was easy to pull out a character and try it on for whatever situation needed to be handled. The first inklings and seeds of the actress began to grow within.

By the time I arrived at high school, my first novel had been completed and sat buried in the bottom of my t-shirt drawer. Along with it was another complete series of shorter stories, all bound together, adventures of middle school girls trying to survive their way through the popular world of junior high, while being different. A book of poetry sat on top of my desk, never put away-because it was added to, almost daily.

One day, I peeked out from behind a page and saw a strange world standing before me. High School was a bustling, harsh place to be, especially for someone who had mastered zero social skills. A refuge for others like myself welcomed me in the theater department. There, for the first time, I met others who shared my traits. Actors, writers, dreamers, artists–people who believed that what you could see in your mind could be more real than what was standing before you. I had come home into a family of my own. I wasn’t different anymore.

The high school years of theater and writing classes and having teachers who molded my skills were a wonderful-if not way too short- time of my life. Actually, truthfully, I hated all of it except the part where I could get to the writing and the acting. Everything else was impatiently tolerated until I could dive back in to the deep well of creativity and be immersed again in the flow of talent that surrounded me.

Then life took an abrupt shift. Choices made became a direction turned and I moved forward into becoming a mother and learning the life lessons of living in the REAL WORLD. Not much room for fiction there…

I have kept the creativity in my life. I have had to. I stayed in my community theater, learned to paint. It has been hard to find that balance over the years, and there have been many lessons learned about what happens to my spirit when I let it die back. Hint: It isn’t a pretty thing. I need it like I need air.

But the fiction writing took a seat way in the back of the bus. After spending so much time NOT in reality, I had needed to find a way to become authentic. Figure out who the real Wendi was. NOT a fiction character chameleon that could shape-shift on a dime, but the real deal. What was important to me, where were MY boundaries, what were the consistencies and the threads that bound my spirit through the ages of my life. The unchangeables? The areas that I needed to grow and cultivate? The areas that I needed to prune and cut away?

A lot of those questions have been answered over the decade that has been my forties. Hurray for the 40′s for there is time to look in the mirror. At least there has been for me. And now that I can see myself standing there, my-self, my true self, not the self that I shifted into for the sake of others, I can see that she is writing fiction again.

It started out innocently enough. First little stories I had been imagining in my head. Then just a few chapters of a story idea that I jotted down in a file on the computer. Then one day, a title of a children’s book, so I wrote that down too. With a few paragraphs to follow. Then a few days later, a few more pages for that. Gosh…a few more chapters of that first book were floating around up there. So I wrote them down too.

Now Men with Pens have an on-line Escape from Reality  fiction story writing group and I have a character there. (You can follow along if you like, but fair warning…its so darn good and fun, it’s addictive!) 

The ideas and the story lines and the characters are all coming back home, as if they have been gone for a very long holiday. I welcome them back with a bit of apprehension. I have real-life responsibilities now. I’m not that free-time little girl who can afford to live up in her head. I have a family to take care of and a blog to write and a REAL world to live in now. It would be very easy to slip away, fall down the rabbit-hole and become vaguely lost to the happenings around me. I don’t want to do that. I love my real-time life. My family and friends are an enormous part of my happiness and joy.

This will be the first time I will try to honestly face the world of fiction writing with balance and structure. I know its been done by others . I don’t know how to do it. Quieting the stories at inappropriate times when there is a story happening in your head and all you want to do is grab a pen and write it down? In the middle of making dinner or entertaining guests? Agh…I think I have shut it down for a long, long time out of fear for situations just as that. How do I be in two places at once?

It is going to be interesting.  (shaking my head) Help!!

I’m taking any and all thoughts and suggestions here…..comments? I’m quite sure my family would appreciate your help too!