Last month in my review, I shared how I was struggling to establish my creativity habit. Thanks so much to those who left comments on this post or emailed me with tips. They were so helpful and it has made a huge difference. The key messages for me were:
- Define what creativity means to me – this could be very different to what it means to you and that is ok.
- Let go of attaching outcomes or results to my creativity time – as a hard core goal setter, I find it difficult to just do stuff. I was building up the expectation of my creativity session way too much, making myself feel more pressured and stressed to achieve something each session. This was exactly the opposite of what I was trying to achieve.
- Small is ok and take joy in anytime spent on creativity, don’t spend time worrying I should have done more.
I would have spend around 9 – 12 hours last month on creative pursuits, not 12 which is my goal, but I was so happy with what I did and if felt less contrived, so will celebrate this and work for more next month.
Here are some of the things I did:
Flower arranging – I love flowers and have been collecting cute jars and bottles to use vases. So excited that freesias have started popping up. They are my favourite flower, I adore the scent.
Making raw treats – I do love to spend time in the kitchen experimenting. Raw treats are great as they are generally pretty quick to make, they are a nice dessert treat for me and I can share them with friends. Recent creations are raw kiwi fruit and lime cheesecake (this is seriously so good!) and raw chocolate balls.
DIY spear and target – I made myself a spear and created a target to practice spear throwing. More on why I was doing that next week!
Tips for establishing a creativity habit
I have also come across some great posts and podcasts on the topic of creativity which you might like to check out if you are, liking me trying to spend more time being creative:
Five Ways to Find Time for Creativity
This post is by the talented Jasmin Tragas. My favourite point is number 2:
2. Don’t make excuses, just do it
The best time to make your art is…right now! If you catch yourself thinking about art, why not get out a pen and paper, or even better…your paints! I find weekends are my time to do something creative and I’ve learned to be less precious about having my own physical or mental space. It means that kids might interrupt me to ask a question about their homework, or that the living room is a crazy a mess for a couple of hours. But who cares, I’m doing what I love, so I turn the music up and just keep on trying.
I know I make excuses and I let mess be one of the excuses. Check out the rest of Jasmin’s post here.
Subtle Disrupters Podcast – Christina Douglas: The connection, collaboration and healing borne out of making – SDMEL29
The Subtle Disrupters is an excellent podcast and I can highly recommend subscribing. Straight after I listened to this post, I set about gathering and arranging flowers – listen to it and it will want you to get making! You can find it here.
5 Creativity Myths You Probably Believe
I am guilty in believing a number of these and I often find myself saying that “I am not really creative” because I don’t fit the stereotypical picture of a creative artist. I also loved myth no. 2: You’ve got to hope for a “Eureka!” moment:
The trouble with the myth of the Eureka moment is that encourages the belief that creativity is a passive process. It suggests you have to wait and hope that you’ll make a breakthrough. It’s true that the final moment of insight often comes as a surprise— a spurt of inspiration rising suddenly from the geyser of the unconscious. But crucially, for this to happen, your unconscious mind needs material to work with. It cannot sift and recombine ideas—a process known as “incubation”—if you don’t first put in the hard work of studying and mastering your field and exposing yourself to different perspectives. That Eureka moment is actually the last step in a long, involved process and not the only step.
You can read the rest of the myths in this post on 99U here.