It’s Not What You Think

If I had to pick one thing that I’ve found to awaken my creativity, keep my creativity alive and is sustainable, it’s a very simple practice. And it’s probably not what you’d think.

First let’s define creativity so we’re all on the same page. It’s easy to think that creativity is solely the art we produce, but it’s deeper than that. It starts with being aware. Creativity is a way of being in the world, it’s a state of mind. Noticing things. Being open to experience life with our senses.

For example, creativity is exercising our curiosity, wonder, experimentation, play, passion, intrigue, awe, seeing something familiar with a new perspective, feeling our emotions, engaging our five senses, problem-solving, maximizing. All of these attributes are the foundation of our creativity. When we engage in them, we are being creative.

Since creativity is what happens when engaging our creative attributes, the first question becomes, “How do I engage my creative attributes?” (and not, “What art should I make?”.

When I realized the simple and sustainable practice to engage my creative attributes (that I mentioned above) it was around 2015 and it happened by accident! I had begun a daily gratitude practice and a daily creative challenge, separately. The gratitude practice was simply writing down three things every day that I was grateful for from the past 24 hours. The creative challenge involved taking only one picture a day on my phone of something I found beautiful or interesting and storing that picture in a specific file on my phone. That’s it.

After about a week of taking time daily to think about what I was grateful for and writing it down, it started to become easier to remember grateful little moments. Soon I started realizing moments I was grateful for as they were happening throughout the day. I was becoming attuned to them. They were now on my radar where before I must have been moving right on to the next thing and not acknowledging them. The more I focused on things I was grateful for, I started to be aware and experience these moments of joy all through the day.

On the same but different note, I started looking for interesting and beautiful things for my creative challenge. I was on the lookout first thing in the morning instead of being in my head planning my day like I had been doing. More and more I naturally started watching for beautiful and interesting things. Even at home doing banal jobs like cleaning I began to notice little nuggets of awe like how the dish water had splashed on a Bob Dylan picture behind the sink and looked like he was crying…buckets of tears.

I started to change. My state of mind started to change. I was becoming more aware of beautiful and interesting things and I was experiencing more gratitude.

The world hadn’t changed and become more beautiful and interesting. The world hadn’t started adding extra doses of joy so I could be more grateful. I was the one that was changing due to both of the daily practices. The common denominator of the practices was that I took time daily to bring my attention to beauty, interest and gratefulness. The key was my attention. I was training my mind to think differently. First it required an imposed interruption of my daily routine. Then it became a habit. I’ve continued since then and It feels like it’s my default setting now.

I’ve morphed these two practices into one a very simple practice to awaken a person’s creative attributes. I now call it Celebrate Creativity. It consists of writing down three things daily that were beautiful or interesting in the past 24 hours. This is one impactful way I continue to exercise my creative attributes so they remain my natural way of being in the world.

I created a simple template for this practice that you can print on a standard sheet of printer paper. If this is helpful for you, you can download it for free by clicking here. Of course you can also write in a notes app on your phone or your current journal…or even on a dirty napkin! The point isn’t what you’re writing on. The point is to impose a creative attribute into your life daily so that it becomes your default mindset.

Enjoy!

*If you’d love to have a friend (that’s me!) send you emails of encouragement, insight and suggestions to live a creative life, then click here to sign up for CELEBRATE The Newsletter. Or pop in here to the blog whenever the spirit moves you for a creative nudge!

Creating makes me feel alive. I want you to experience that same vibrancy!