4 Ways to Feed Your Creativity
Posted on July 28, 2015 in Coaching, Creativity, Expression, Inspiration
Creativity is a flow. It requires input in order to produce output. By the same token, outflow is needed to make space for more inflow.
Here are 4 ways to feed your creativity:
- Take Artist Dates: This is one of Julia Cameron’s brilliant assignments in The Artist’s Way. It involves taking yourself (just you, this is not social), out to soak up whatever your creative self wants. It helps to think about that part of you as “child-like.” Might be an art supply store where you salivate over the choices, a quilting shop where the color fills your spirit, a nursery where shape, color and aroma of plants inspire, or a junk shop where another man’s trash might be your treasure. The point is to seek inspiration from many sources, and to make it just about soaking it in, not connecting to others.
- Hang Out with Other Creative Souls: This is about connecting with others. Others who share your brand of creative passion. Join a gardening club, take a cooking class, start a writing group. The are habits and thoughts peculiar to your creative tribe. So find them. Swap thoughts, positive habits, secrets of the trade. Just being together with other creative souls can inspire you to create
- Schedule Creative Time: Creativity rarely “just happens.” And if you wait for inspiration to strike before creating, it’ll be a cold day in you-know-where before it happens. Scheduling creative time, make sitting down to your passion a habit. This actually makes space for inspiration to flow in. It’s “training your muse.” You let her know when you are consistently available, so she knows when you’ll be listening!
- Allow Free-flow: Take off the creative limits. Give yourself a range of materials and projects to work from. My favorite “toy” as a girl was my “project box,” a gift from my creative aunts. They took a cardboard box with a handle, covered it with wallpaper samples – or maybe it was wrapping paper, and edged it with felt. It was colorful, compact and inviting. Inside there were compartments that held “left-overs” to them, “supplies” to me. There was felt, fabric scraps, tubes of beads, empty spools, pipe cleaners, tiny balls of yarn, a pair of scissors, and glue. I spent innumerable hours happily creating out of that project box. Make the equivalent for your creative self. It will love you for it!
Coach’s Challenge: Pick at least one of these 4 ways to feed your creativity this week and implement it. In this case, more is better – so do 2 or 3 or 4 if you can! And leave a comment about what feeds your creativity!
