Over the past few years I have been on the search for my creativity. I have always made things here and there for people especially around birthdays and holidays but I wanted to feel my creativity as a part of who I am on a daily basis, to feel like a creative being. Here are some things I have learned about myself, learned about creativity, and things I’ve experimented with to inspire creativity within myself.
Physical Activity/Mundane Task
I’ve noticed I tend to be inspired often while walking, when I don’t listen to anything and just let my mind wander. I’ll write the ideas as they come to me in my notes app on my phone before they fly away again.
Journaling
I have been experimenting with journaling styles over the last several years. One being morning pages from the book The Artist’s Way by Julia Cameron where you write three journal pages every morning.This can seem daunting so start wherever you are. If you can only do one sentence, that’s enough. At first, journaling seemed so hard to me. I hated my writing voice, I struggled with spelling and was scared someone would read my journal. I finally learned to let that all go…for the most part. These things still bother me but I do it anyway because I feel the change in myself when I get all the junk out of my brain and onto the page. I feel my growth when I reflect on my day, week, month, year. I feel calmer when I get my anger, sadness, anxiety and frustration on the page. I feel my creativity breaking through the fog of incessant thoughts. Journaling is now just a part of who I am and one of my many tools.
Inspiration Boards
I create physical yearly or seasonal inspiration boards by finding and printing images from online (I can never find just the right images from searching only magazines). I also create inspiration boards for most of my ideas on Pinterest. I love being able to reference my pins from anywhere like when I’m shopping for supplies.
In Flow
When I started my business this year I signed up to be a vendor at an artisan market which meant I had a deadline to make my ideas into a physical product. I gathered materials and went to work in my craft space every night after my kiddo went to bed. As I worked with the materials my vision had to shift and change to accommodate the reality. I felt myself going with the flow of the changes. New ideas would arrive to solve problems I was encountering. I have heard of people being in flow but this was my first time experiencing it and being aware at the time it was happening.
We Are All Creative Beings
Something I have heard along the way is that we are all creative beings even if it is not in the traditional sense of being an “artist”. Creativity can take many forms and expressions. I look for the many small and big ways I am creative in my own life like how I organize my home, problem solve in parenting my son, baking, and building my business.
5 Ways To Find Your Creativity
- Journaling - Find a journaling style that works for you - one sentence a day, morning brain dump, five minutes of silence writing down whatever comes to mind, or daily prompts.
- Reading/listening to books about creativity - The Artist’s Way by Julia Cameron, Big Magic by Elizabeth Gilbert, Your Brain on Art by Susan Magsamen and Ivy Ross
- Take a walk, take a shower or do the dishes without listening to anything letting your mind wander
- Creat a physical or digital inspiration board
- Try a new hobby - borrow supplies from friend or a local tool library or sign up for a class. *If you do buy supplies for a new hobby, try to only purchase the essentials rather than every gadget until you know it’s something your really into.