The Danger of Blanket Beliefs: Which Ones Are Smothering YOUR Creativity?

What is the one single thing that will hold back your creativity, even if you have the perfect environment, studio, equipment, support network, marketing, and finances in place to freely create and share with the world whatever your heart desires?

The answer? Your belief system.

Our belief systems are the collected thoughts we have about the world and ourselves in it, those thoughts we assume to be true, and no longer question or challenge.

Many beliefs we have may come from direct experience and good judgement and are entirely healthy to hold and abide by. For example we believe if we put our hand in a fire it will get burnt. And we’d be right!

But what about other beliefs that appear to be just as irrefutable and entirely founded in truth, but actually aren’t? These can be beliefs that in fact also limit us hugely, even if we don’t initially realise it.

There are those beliefs which may be fairly specific to your creative life and aspirations, for example:

“I can’t draw so it’s pointless me trying anything else artistic.”

“Getting a book deal these days is impossible, there’s too much competition.”

“I tried dancing ballroom years ago and was useless so I couldn’t dance salsa.”

Then there are those that are even wider reaching, such as:

“All artists suffer from depression”.

“You can’t make money from something you love.”

“You can only have a few good ideas before you run out.”

Do any of these examples sound familiar to your belief system?

We can call these beliefs, that we hold without having seriously questioned or challenged in years, and that seriously limit our creative efforts, Blanket Beliefs.

And yes, blankets can be very comforting. They can keep us warm and cosy, huddled up in the same position for hours, days or years, safe from the fear of change, protected from needing to reach out beyond ourselves and the familiarity of what we know.

But blankets can also smother us, stifle us, and entangle us, holding us back from breaking free, striding out and seeking what we truly desire in our creative lives.

The first step in breaking free from your Blanket Beliefs is to recognise them, and separate what is actually true from what you just BELIEVE to be true.

Take the time to think about some of the beliefs you hold without question about your creative life.

Write them down as a list, the thoughts you hold as unquestionably true that seriously limit your creativity and prevent you moving forward and achieving what you dream of achieving. Use the examples above if they’re relevant to you and add as many others as you think of.

Then consider what holding these unproven Blanket Beliefs costs you and your creative ambitions on a daily basis. Only then can you begin to work on replacing these beliefs with others that are more realistic, more healthy, and that will serve you far better in the long run.

So isn’t it time you began to identify and loosen some of your Blanket Beliefs?

Don’t you owe it to yourself, and to the rest of the waiting world, to stop smothering YOUR creativity?

: Share Your Experience ::

What are some of the Blanket Beliefs that hold YOU back from creating?

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

The Truth About Your Creativity: Who DO You Create For?

Creativity has a thousand different guises and expressions. Indeed, each of us who create may have any number of different ways of creating and communicating with the world through our creative abilities and works.

But how many of these are truly the things we WANT to create?

How much of our creative energy is invested in those projects we burn with passion for and yearn to produce, the projects that when we’re in the midst of creating feel rewarding, exciting and fulfilling like nothing else?

Often we may appear to be very productive on the surface and be churning out new work apparently effortlessly and without breaking a sweat. So this makes us highly creative. Doesn’t it?

Well, yes in one sense. If we measure how creative someone is by the volume of their output then someone who writes 6 novels a year or records an album every 3 months, is very creative.

But consider also the quality of this output. And not even the quality as measured by the outside world, but the quality of the experience to the artist who created it, the value and benefit that creating these works gave them.

At one end of the spectrum there may be, for example, an artist who creates one new piece of work every 4 years, yet each day of those 4 years, each moment invested in their project, was rewarding, enjoyable and entirely necessary for the creator.

At the opposite end of the spectrum, there may be an artist who creates something new every day, generating new work like a perpetual motion conveyer belt.

Regardless of the opinions of the wider world, their work may be equally as rewarding for them as the artist who produces something every 4 years. Or it may not.

Only the artists themselves know what drives them to create and who they’re really creating for.

Consider this example: Imagine you wrote a novel that you found personally incredibly satisfying to write, it then got picked up by a major publishing house, sold hundreds of thousands of copies, and received great acclaim.

Fantastic. Naturally, your publishers, and the fans of your work demand more, a sequel or follow up to the first. You oblige and write the second book, though it was more difficult than the first and the pressure was completely different.

5 years and 5 novels down the road, the enjoyment you’re getting from writing is virtually non-existent. You feel highly stressed and under constant pressure to deliver. The motivating and highly personal reasons that helped you write your first book have all but evaporated.

When you began you had dozens of ideas for books, each very different to one other, and each exciting and challenging for you to write. Now, instead, you find each novel you produce is a virtually photocopy of the previous one. The challenge, the thrill, the purpose and the point of writing, have all but disappeared.

Put simply, you’re not creating for yourself anymore.

It’s easy for us to lose sight of why we create, especially in the face of any commercial or critical success. We’re torn between wanting to pursue our successes - mining the potentially rich seam we’ve found - and trying to remain original, authentic and innovative enough to satisfy our natural need to evolve and grow as artists.

How does this relate to your creative life right now?

Ask yourself, what is most important to you - creating to satisfy your deepest artistic urges, fulfilling the need that nothing else can replace, or reproducing the type of work that you know has been successful in the past?

Be truthful in your answer, there’s no definitive right or wrong that works for everyone. We’re all individual and that’s just the point.

So what is the truth about your creativity. Who DO you create for?

:: Share Your Experience ::

So what is the truth about YOUR creativity. Who DO you create for?

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