Creativity is a practice

Maya Angelou once said, “You can’t use up creativity. The more you use, the more you have.”

And Pablo Picasso said, “Learn the rules like a pro, so you can break them like an artist.”

You may not consider yourself an artist like Pablo Picasso, but every single person in this world is creative. Maybe you don’t work with paint, but you’re a creative problem solver.

Or perhaps, you’re an entrepreneur, and you’re always coming up with new pitches and products for your company. Whatever your career, personality, and background, you ARE inherently creative, and you can create beautiful things.

If your job is your creative passion, you may suffer from insecurities, like self-doubt or fear of failure. What if someone doesn’t like my work? What if no one understands it?

What if my passion isn’t enough to support my family?

These fears can keep us from greatness.

They can keep us from creating an impact in the world.

So how do we get past them?

The key to living a creative life is the practice. Clients come to me with all sorts of feelings: frustration, stress, fear. Sometimes they are stuck in procrastination, unable to get started; other times stuck in perfectionism, unable to get completion.

But what stems behind their fears is the misunderstanding and therefore the lack of a creative practice.

So here are a few steps to support you:

1. Get started. Do not wait for an idea or an inspiration. You do the work, then the inspiration or idea will come.

2. Forget about outcomes. A strong statement for a coach, but the reality is you will have no impact if you focus on the outcome, so stay with the process.

3. Accept failure. Know that your practice is exactly that- practice; testing; experimenting; rehearsing. If you take risks, you might fail. That's good.

4. Stick at it. Book a time and show up. Even if you don't feel like it. For example this newsletter is scheduled in my calendar. Come the day, I just do it. No matter what. Not too much thought. It's all practice. Incredibly enough, sometimes the things we overthink, edit, plan and elaborate on, are not always our best. One of the newsletters I did which was the quickest and had no editing (my son was only one month old and didn't sleep more than fifteen mins at once!) was one of the best at getting feedback from readers. So sometimes the key is to just stick to it and not judge your own work.