"I'm not creative." "I don't have a creative bone in my body." "As creative as you are, that's how uncreative I am." These are all real comments from real people who don't believe they're creative.
But we really all do have creativity, whether we believe it or not. As Brenda Ueland said in If You Want to Write, "Everyone is original, intelligent and has something important to say."
Your creativity may not be in art or writing or music; it may be in auto mechanics or computer programming or cooking.
Wherever your creativity lies, the key to bringing out that creativity and being who you want to be is to make time for your creative side to just be creative.
We often have trouble finding time for our creative selves if we don't have jobs in the creative industries, because we feel that with work, family, and friends, we just don't have any room left in our lives for creativity.
If we realized how important that creative self is, perhaps we could find the time more easily. People who act on their creative impulses and allow their creative selves to flourish have more fulfilling relationships, enjoy their work more, and find that every aspect of their lives is better in ways they could not have imagined, just by allowing their creative lives to flourish.
Finding the time may be less difficult than you expect, when you turn your mind from "finding" time to "making" time.
Let's say your creative area is cooking, but most evenings you get home from work barely in time to throw something together and stick it in the oven. You don't have time to cook the meals you would like to cook. But on the weekends, you spend a lot of time reading and napping, because you're so exhausted from the week.
If you tried setting aside a block of time on Saturday morning to cook whatever you would like, with the idea that you would freeze some of it for the next week, you would most likely find that after your Saturday morning cooking session, you have more energy and more time. Your weekly house cleaning might go more quickly, and you might find that instead of reading or sleeping, you'd like to cook a nice meal for Saturday night.
Over time, you might find yourself less tired and more energized every day, from making this time to cook creatively. While you still might not have time to cook most evenings for dinner, you might find yourself in the kitchen after dinner, preparing the next evening's meal to be baked when you get home.
This practice of making time for your creative self can transform every aspect of your life, making the creative you much more a working part of the whole you. You will find yourself using your creativity in ways you never imagined, and becoming a new person with creativity at the core of your being.
To begin making time for your creative self:
* Spend some time thinking about your creative outlets.
* Make time for one creative activity this week.
* Write in your journal about your creative feelings and activities.
