A Simple Guide to Creativity
I’ve wanted to make a guide to creativity for some time but the last thing I want is to become “creativity police” and make you feel you’re doing creativity wrong. This is simply a few suggestions you can try if you want to be more creative.
Creativity is for everyone, you and me, and all of us are creative.
The only difference there might be is that some of us focus more on being creative than others, so if you don’t feel you’re creative, it could just be you’re not using this side of yourself, at the moment.
My thoughts about creating a guide for creativity have been:
Creativity is personal, so how do I make a guide that is general?
Do I know enough about creativity to make such a guide? (Typical self-doubt)
Can anyone even make a guide to creativity?
If just 1 person gets inspired by this guide, it’s worth writing, so I decided to do it. Whether you learn from me or someone else, my goal is that you are not afraid of being curious about your own creativity.
As a creativity coach, clients often come to be because they feel creatively stuck in one way or another. Often the wish is to be more creative. So, I created this small and simple guide to creativity to help you if you wish to be more creative too.
“Creativity is not a talent. It is a way of operating.”
A simple guide to creativity
This simple guide highlights just 3 things you can start practicing to be more creative, I could write pages and pages about creativity, the benefits, and blocks but in keeping this guide to creativity simple, I’ve picked 3 elements.
Get your Curious George hat on.
Be a little more open to new. Look up, look sideways. Travel a new way to work. Cook a new dish. Read a book by a new author, maybe a whole new genre. Follow your curiosity a little more often. If you find yourself losing hours on Pinterest looking at hand lettering, have a go at it. Do you love browsing in bookshops, why is that?
It doesn’t have to mean you have to be a writer. Maybe it could be marketing, working in a book store, editing, publishing…or maybe the books represent a time when you got lost in a book that affected you profoundly.
Be a little curious about why you are drawn to different things. Why do you like it? What about it do you like?
Be playful and silly
Being playful, mocking about, being silly is probably the best (and funnest - not a typo) way to bring out your creative side. But many of us lose the ability to be playful as adults and we have no idea what to do if someone (like me) says “Be playful”. By the way, this is why we mistakenly think children are more creative than adults. They’re not, but they seem to be because of their ability to play.
Being playful is a state of mind and not attached to a specific activity, but in case you freeze at the thought of being playful, I’ve got a few silly tips for you.
Permission granted to draw like a 5-year-old. Try drawing a horse, a car, and a house with your opposite hand, and be purposely bad.
Ask 3 “what if?” questions, and either answer them out loud or write them down in a notebook. I’ll go first, what if the apples on my tree were purple with orange dots? How would they taste? Would they still be the shape of apples?
Ask “How can I make whatever I’m doing today more fun?”
Play is also important in creative entrepreneurship, and I get that lightening up is easier said than done, as you’ll always have a gazillion things on your to-do list, so inviting creativity into your life is also about being intentional in how you spend your time.
Focus on the process
You’ll do yourself a massive favor if you focus on the process of creating and not purely on the end goal and what that’ll get you.
Your process is what you do every day. If you want to be more creative, you have to set time aside to play and do and try and mess about. You can be creative with whatever work you’re doing now. As John Cleese says, creativity is a way of operating.
In my creativity coaching, I help my clients focus on curiosity, the process, and how they feel about themselves. Creativity is personal. Your creativity is your unique expression and it’s a meeting with who you are. This is why doing creative work is challenging. Not only do you have to learn a craft or a medium, but you also have to deal with your emotions, like frustrations when it’s not going well.
Creativity is yours and you’re creative. Maybe you feel you don’t do enough creative work and you can totally change that. You don’t have to have things all figured out. Not many of us do. The fact that you’re reading this, is a sign that you’re open to exploring and learning, and that makes you halfway there.
Just 10 minutes of writing while you drink your morning coffee will do so much for you and your creativity. Saving inspiring pins on Pinterest on your lunch break will also spark your creative curiosity. You don’t have to change your life right away to be more creative. Just take small steps when you can. Look for joy and what gives you energy and you’re well on your way. :-)
Want help with your own personal creative process?
Hop on over to my contact page and let me know in the form what you need help with. I’d love to help you build your own creative process.
