Coming Home To You: 5 Questions To Help Find Your True Creative Self

All of us in our everyday lives have to play a number of different roles, and put on a variety of personas. Different parts of life require different abilities to come to the fore, and similarly, different people bring out different parts of our personalities.

Think about your own life. You may be at various points in the day a mother or father, spouse, business partner, son or daughter, employer, employee, colleague, friend, and a host of other different roles.

This depends on who you’re with, the environment you’re in, and the expectations on your behaviour and way of being, from yourself and from others.

Sometimes even, we seem to need to wear more than one of these many hats at one time, juggling them as best we can whilst at the same trying to remain true to our core beliefs and values that run through everything we do.

But, when you come home at the end of the day, and are able to remove all the various hats, relax and detach from the expectations of the various roles you play, who is it your left with?

Who is the real you underneath it all? The true creative you that is always there but sometimes gets pushed aside or repressed?

It’s all too easy for us to lose touch of the core identity of ourselves amidst all the chaos and demands of day to day life. So here are 5 powerful questions to ask yourself, to allow you to “Come Home To You” and get closer once again to your true creative self.

1. If you had 24 hours to live, what would you do with the time? Would you spend it with friends and family, would you go places you’d always wanted to go, would you create the art you’d always longed to create?

2. What are your 5 greatest strengths? What are the 5 most fundamental things you do well and are best at? What strengths have you called upon time and time again in difficult times of your life?

3. What would your closest friends, colleagues and family say are your 5 greatest strengths? This often gives surprisingly different answers to the previous question, because it forces you to look at how others see you, and often highlights strengths that others value highly but you maybe just take for granted.

4. Which 5 guiding principles in your life are most important to you? Think of these as the fundamental guidelines you live by, and which influence everything you do. For example: being honest, being creative, willingness to learn and grow, tolerance to others, and so on.

5. If you had to create one piece of work or art that defined the essence of you most accurately, what would it be like? Would it be similar to something artistic you’ve already created or completely new and different. Either way, consider the reasons behind your answer.

Answer these 5 questions as honestly and fully as you can, and you’ll begin see a very clear picture of the real you.

The next stage is to ask yourself what steps can you now take, with this greater knowledge, to start to “Come Home to You” more frequently, more authentically and more deeply?

:: Share Your Experience ::

Which of the 5 questions were most powerful and useful to you? How can you apply the answers and ideas you came up with to start "Coming Home To You" more?

Share your comments and experiences by just clicking on the comments link below.

Creativity Is For Life Not Just For Workshops! 3 Top Tips…

Picture the scene. You’ve just returned from a weekend break away, a creative retreat. Maybe it was a group writing retreat out in the mountain wilderness. Maybe it was a weekend singing workshop at a renowned theatre with some of the leading voice tutors in your country. Or it could have been a series of positive thinking seminars by some of the pioneers in the field.

You’ve enjoyed the weekend immensely and come back feel more energised and in love with life and your creativity than you have done in years.

You didn’t want to leave, you were wishing it didn’t have to end, and you could’ve spent days, weeks, months in the company of other like minded people and keep your energy and creativity levels permanently fizzing to the brim.

After a few days (or even hours!) back in your normal world though, the events and impositions of daily life start to take grip on your creative work again. That weekend already seems like weeks ago, and the red hot spurt of motivation you experienced has become more of a lukewarm trickle.

So what happened? Why didn’t the creativity and the energy last?

Well, one of the reasons these kind of retreats are so powerful is that they literally do allow us to retreat from our daily lives. They allow us to, temporarily at least, put aside our concerns, commitments, jobs, relationships and troubles and spend time just on ourselves and feeding and recharging our creative well being.

It’s inevitable that when we come back, simply because of the difference in surroundings, commitments and people, every day can not be the same as in that valuable weekend.

But there is hope. Creativity, after all, is for life, not just for workshops.

So here are 3 top tips for maintaining creative energy in your daily life:

1. Write every day. One thing in common to virtually all great creators is that they have a daily discipline of writing. Even if you’re not a writer, by spending 15 minutes every day jotting down thoughts, ideas and plans, you keep those creative channels open and the ideas are able to keep flowing forth, ready to be seized upon and evolved.

2. Count your blessings. By taking the time regularly, daily if possible, to take stock of all you have in your life to be thankful for, you adjust your outlook from one of feeling hard done by or put upon, to one of gratitude. Keep a “Daily Gratitude” journal and at the end of each day write 3 things that happened or you noticed that day you can be thankful for. Soon you’ll begin to look for and notice all the positives in your life far more easily.

3. Keep in touch with your vision. Regularly write, sketch, collage or otherwise construct a vision for your life, how you want it to be in all areas, in as much vibrant detail as possible. By doing this once a month, after just a few months, by looking back at previous visions, you’ll be amazed at how much comes in to being simply because you took the vital step of taking that vision from a collection of thoughts swimming around in your head to a tangible, achievable whole.

Each of these 3 practices will go a long way to helping you keep your creative energy topped up and bubbling away. By doing all three together, you’ll have an even more powerful framework in place to help you achieve all you want in your creative life.

Remember though that a steady consistent commitment is the key. Doing any of these exercises just once won’t get you very far. But do them regularly and you’ll soon start to feel your creativity flowing more easily.

: Share Your Experience ::

What are your experiences of this loss of motivation after a creative retreat or workshop?

Which of the 3 tips can you best use in YOUR creative life, starting today?

Share your comments and experiences by just clicking on the comments link below.

Creativity Defaults: How Are You Unknowingly Limiting YOUR Creativity?

What would you say if someone suggested to you that you were greatly limiting your creativity and creative output without realising it, every single time you come to create?

You might respond in a variation on 1 of 3 ways:

1. You might deny it indignantly, saying: “That’s ridiculous, of course I’m not, why would I hold myself back and limit myself, I love creating!”.

2. You might say: “Ok maybe sometimes I limit myself when I’m feeling less confident or negative about a project”, which is something no doubt we all relate to from time to time.

3. Though it’s highly unlikely, you might respond: “I know I limit myself and I know exactly how. I’m going to stop immediately.”

So why is almost certain you’d reply with answer 1 or 2 and not 3?

Simply because you probably don’t realise just how and when you DO limit yourself, and the subtle and almost imperceptible ways these limitations can manifest themselves.

To explain why this is more clearly, here’s an analogy:

When I come to write a new article, I open a blank document in my word processor. To make it easy for me to get the idea down on the page and write as effortlessly as possible, I’ve already set up my word processor program to use a default font, size, margin and so on. This means I can get straight into writing with as little delay and distraction as possible.

The font I use is the very neutral Verdana, the size of 11 point is large enough to see clearly, and the page size of 125% is also as easy to view as possible.

But what if, as my default new blank page, the font size was set to a tiny, eye straining 4 point? Or the default font was an oblique elaborate handwriting typeface? Or the page size set to 10% so it appeared on the screen about the size of a postage stamp?!

Of course, if any of these were set as the default, I’d struggle to get going. I’d either type away anyway, squinting to see the almost invisible text appearing, and along the way give myself a headache and a sore neck, and my face a permanently pained expression.

Or I could change each of the settings one by one to some that were more comfortable and easy to use. But then, unless I change the stored default settings, each time I again open a new blank document, I’ll go through the same clumsy process.

So how does this relate to your creativity?

Well, consider what happens when you settle down to create. What are YOUR default settings, both internally and externally? Are the conditions set up to enable you to create as easily and freely as possible?

Is your attitude and outlook set to “Open, Creative, Adventurous, Motivated”? Or is it more like "Fearful, Anxious, Doubt-filled, Lethargic"?

And your external environment, how is that arranged? Organised in a way that suits and enhances your creativity? Uplifting, inspiring surroundings? Tools and equipment all ready and available?

Or is it cluttered, chaotic, bleak and bland, with your equipment scattered haphazardly so you can never lay your hands on the right pen/ brush/ instrument/ material/ when you need it?

Take a few minutes out to look honestly and carefully at these factors, both the internal thoughts and processes in your mind, and the external environment you create in.

Then ask yourself if your default settings for creativity really are as favourable as possible to give you the opportunities to create your best work?

If like most of us, they’re not, then start to think about how you can improve them, and take the action necessary to put these changes in place. Reset those defaults, and notice what a difference it can make.

:: Share Your Experience ::

What are YOUR Creativity Defaults set to? And how can you adjust them to enhance your creativity?

Share your comments and experiences by just clicking on the comments link below.