Why do you create? When do you create? What do you create? How do you create and where do you create? Answering these questions can ultimately alter your attitude toward creativity!
Creativity requires both inspiration and discipline. Here are some questions for you to consider. Take a sheet of paper and jot down your thoughts and responses:
First: Why do you create? What is your purpose? Do you create for the applause of the crowd? Or to be the center of attention? Certainly, the attention will fade and focus will be redirected towards someone else.
Second: What are your creating? This is where your project begins and where practicality adds definition to your creativity. Value your ideas. Record your thoughts. Celebrate small milestones! Go to my Live Your Dream series to help YOU further develop your dream!
Third: When do you create? Many people wait for a moment of inspiration to create. Professional writers know that each day they must create. Professionals work to deadline – NOT to pleasure!
REMEMBER: YOU create the habit and the repetition forms the creativity. Ask yourself what habits of creativity work best for you? Do you find yourself most creative in the morning or in the evening? The Bottom Line: Know your own body rhythms and develop disciplines that support your creativity!
As a young businesswoman I remember sitting at my desk after having just received accolades for a very successful business deal that people of my age seldom experienced.
The president of the bank and my peers thought it was amazing, yet I sat there thinking, “I’ve obtained what people seek after for years…but is this what I want to do with the rest of my life??”
As I was pondering this decision the phone rang. It was a local pastor calling, and I remember telling him, “Funny you should call right now…I am pondering what to do with the rest of my life.” I recall his words so clearly. He simply said, “Let peace be the umpire of your heart.”
Hanging up the phone, I leaned back and thought, “Stay here? For the rest of my life?” NO joy, NO Peace! And in that moment I decided to pursue a second career. Perhaps today, you need courage to follow your heart.
Consider this: My mother-in-law always said, work at your career for 5 years, and if you find yourself bored, then do something else. Her observation: boredom was the great thief of happiness.
Life is too short to be bored!
Recently, I was moved by a letter I received from a family whose daughter is seeking higher education. An everyday person just like you, she had lost sight of her dream. In the mundane routine of life, she had lost hope. What do you do when it seems like hope is lost or when it seems that your dream is a thousand miles away?
You can develop CREATIVITY habits essential to cultivating the dream that is in your heart! How?
- Create Your Own Inspiration Book Using Bright And Beautiful Pictures! Gather pictures from magazines, advertisements or the newspaper. Paste the images on a dream-board or in a book—let them speak new possibilities to your heart. Their symbolism can expand your horizons.
- Momentarily change your surroundings! If you are facing discouragement on the pathway to your dream you may need inspiration! Use a simple change in environment to stimulate your curiosity and increase productivity in thought. Do this throughout your day!
- Rely upon the creativity of others! Contrary to popular opinion, most thoughts are not original but they are a conglomeration of all that we have heard, read and seen!
- Speak out or write out your thoughts! Get into the habit of capturing your thoughts throughout the day! This is one of the best ways to stimulate the creative process!
- Allow a sense of urgency to motivate your creativity! Don’t wait for tomorrow! Procrastination never brings out the best in life! It simply eats away at your life!
How do you perceive adversity? The great sayings of leaders such as Martin Luther King, “I have a dream,” Ronald Reagan, “Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall,” or Nelson Mandela, “Quitting is leading too,” were not born in a time of comfort and tranquility but were shaped in adversity!
Perhaps you are like the famed baseball player Jim Abbott. Though born with only one hand, he became a Michigan Hall-of-Famer, an Olympic athlete, and one of the rare major league baseball pitchers to record a no-hitter.
From his earliest years, he wanted to be an athlete. For hours he labored, perfecting a process of clasping his mitt under one arm, throwing a baseball against a wall, instantly grasping his mitt again with his one good hand to catch the return, quickly switching the mitt, retrieving the ball and repeating the process. He practiced for hours moving closer and closer to the wall, becoming so proficient that within a few feet of the wall, he could switch the glove and the ball almost simultaneously. With an indomitable spirit, Jim handled the naysayers with eloquence and overcame his disability with simple well-practiced solutions, inspiring thousands of young people with disabilities to pursue their dreams.
Just recently my husband spent a few hours with Jim Stovall, a Global Entrepreneur, film producer and author of over 20 books. I am sure you would never consider that Mr. Stovall was diagnosed with a degenerative eye disease at 17 and was blind by the age of 29.
Jim invented “S.A.P,” a special technology that allows the blind to enjoy major film releases. You see, Jim was an avid movie buff. Losing his sight meant he could no longer enjoy his classic collection. One day he determined that someone should solve this problem, and he created his Emmy Award-winning Narrative TV Network that serves over 13 million blind people each year.
Zig Ziglar, world class motivational speaker of 40 years says, “Happiness is a by-product of who you are and what you do. And yes, you CAN set it as a specific goal.”
Today we continue with the last 4 steps to begin initiating your creative process:
The fourth step, wait for it! What do we wait for? Clarity! The moment when the light suddenly comes on, the darkness disappears and your mind clearly pictures the idea you’ve been searching for. It often occurs when you least expect it…like while you’re sitting in a beautiful garden listening to the birds.
Fifth, test it! Give your idea a try! Confirm it. Your brilliant solution must now be verified. Are you open to evaluation and criticism? Can you sincerely assess possible shortcomings and faults? Honest assessment is a vital part of the creative process!
Remember, Creativity requires courage! Sir Ken Robinson author of Creative Schools says, “If you’re not prepared to be wrong, you will never come up with anything original.”
Sixth, get up again! As an inventor, Thomas Edison made 1,000 unsuccessful attempts to invent the incandescent light bulb! Edison’s teachers had said he was “too stupid to learn anything.” When asked about his repeated lightbulb failures, he simply said that he had discovered 1000 ways not to build a lightbulb! Edison’s 1000 attempts were not failure but DISCOVERY! Learn to celebrate your failures and embrace discovery!
Seventh, remember, you are in it to win it! Now that you’ve refined your idea: it’s time to plan it; grow it; and build it. This is where the real work begins. Like a long distance runner, you are now launching a journey that will require training, resource, and energy. Keep looking forward! Some of the greatest creativity ever displayed by humanity is a result of thousands of hours of laborious experimentation.
How do we initiate the creative process? Does it require hours of educational training? For years, my husband has been committed to some type of daily writing. In the early years of our marriage he wrote 6 pages a day on the topic that he was studying. As technology progressed he moved into writing a daily blog. Now he writes books by writing at least one well thought out page each day. His structure for writing is much clearer and his goals are simplified, but he continues to place a constant demand upon his creativity.
So how do you begin?
First, see it! Define the problem you need to solve or the project you want to create. Look at it from different perspectives. In other words, keep reframing the idea, researching for insights from different viewpoints.
Second, go for a plunge! Dive deep into the materials you’ve gathered. Don’t just stick your toe in the edge of the water, immerse yourself. Allow the reality of what you expect to solve or create to consume your thoughts.
Third, think on these things! The point is to let the information steep like a tea bag in hot water. All the seedlings of information you have gathered can now sprout in the soil of your mind. How? Take a break! Go for a walk….ponder the information!
In the spring of 1883 two young men graduated from medical school. The two differed from one another in both appearance and ambition. Ben was short and stocky. Will was tall and thin. Ben dreamed of practicing medicine on the affluent United States East Coast. Will wanted to work in a rural community.
Ben begged his friend to go to New York where they could both make a fortune. Will refused. His friend called him foolish for wanting to practice medicine in rural USA. “First of all,” Will said, “I want to be a great surgeon…the very best, if I have the ability.”
Years later the wealthy and powerful came from around the world to be treated by Will at his clinic. Today, the Mayo Clinic is one of the leading educational and research hospitals in the world. Why? Because someone chose a life mission to be the very best they could be, and in doing so opened a pathway for scores of others to follow!
Who is your neighbor? Who are you required to help in this world? Should you be involved in the business of rescuing others? Or is it just better to sit by and watch people suffer?
A religious leader asked Jesus, “Who is my neighbor?” Jesus replied with a story about a man who was attacked by robbers. They stripped him of his clothes and beat him, leaving him almost dead.
A priest saw the injured man and quickly passed on the opposite side of the road. So did a second priest! Then a Samaritan man, considered lowlier than a dog but evidently having some wealth, took pity on the stranger, bandaged his wounds, put him in an inn and cared for him. Jesus then posed this question, “Which of these three men was a neighbor to the man who fell into the hand of the robbers?”
The religious leader responded, “The one who had mercy on him.” In every human soul, there is a void—an emptiness, waiting to be filled. What will you pursue to fill that void—success, family, prosperity, education? Or are you willing to step out and set a different standard for your life? A standard that can make a difference?
A man once wrote of this experience. As a small town prepared to be flooded before the building of a large dam, a unique thing happened. In the months before the flooding, all improvements and repairs stopped! Why paint a house if it will be destroyed in a few months? As week by week the town deteriorated, the man offered this conclusion, “Where there is no faith in the future, there is no power in the present.”
Hope is the picture of the future. Without that picture there is no confidence to move forward and certainly no power by which to live!
If you need hope today, you’ll find inspiring resources at LeslieMcNulty.com—you will find stories of people just like you discovering hope for everyday life! http://bit.ly/1EEHSMX
