The Road Map

Here’s a road map with instructions for waking up, and/or expand your creativity. Do a few, or all the suggestions and watch your creativity bloom high and wide.

There’s only one kind of growth in this world, and that’s through creative energy. Creativity comes from awareness. Awareness is dynamic energy and is the birthplace of everything new. You are both awareness and consciousness, therefore by definition creative.  

One part of us is dynamic and ever moving—the other part loves to stick to routines and cling tenaciously to the same old patterns of living and relating. Don’t let one way of being dominate the other way because it is only through awareness that you’re experience joy.   

So go ahead try something new, prepare to feel uncomfortable, prepare to fail, push boundaries, and take risks; you won’t regret it. You’ll not only find your own unique expression of creativity but you’ll have gained the courage to fully embrace yourself. I Promise.

Try something new

It doesn’t matter what it is. If you’re interested in it, even marginally, I recommend trying it. AND you’ll receive great benefit whether you’re that interested or not. This may sound strange but that new thing you’re trying pushes you beyond your comfort zone, even if it’s totally unrelated to your genre of interest. It will still stimulate your creativity.

You’ll be amazed at how your brain will come up with ways to use what you’ve just learned, in ways that will please you. This is one of the easiest routes in jump-starting creativity that’s been too long dormant.

Example: Trying anything new in any genre causes our inherent creativity to use whatever it can from the new thing and find ways to apply it to the areas you want. When I owned a magazine called Energy Medicine, at least once a month I’d go to the book store and read subject-unrelated journals, periodicals and mags. So, science invention, computer programming, geography, anything that was totally outside my area of expertise. And low-and-below by the time I’d get back to my office, I’d have several new ideas to try. Exposing ourselves to new things outside our area of expertise is hugely stimulating in exciting unexpected ways.  

Prepare to Feel Uncomfortable

The number one thing that happens to us all when we try anything new is discomfort; and for some that discomfort can quickly escalate into anxiety, frustration, fear, confusion, impatience, lack of confidence, extreme sleepiness, vague forgetfulness, hyperventilation…well, you get the picture. You name it, it can and will happen. While we’ll all feel some degree of discomfort the degree and extent to which we’ll suffer depends are many factors; just know that it won’t initially be comfortable. This is a good thing it shakes the energy of you up.

Embrace this, and you’re embracing yourself. You are worth a new adventure. 

NOTE: upon occasions you’ll feel unexpectedly excited or right at home in your new choice. This is not the “normal” experience, but a tell or sign, that you’re in the right place. Grab on with both hands and don’t let go. :0)

Now comes the “other” news…

Prepare to fail

You’re going to fail. In fact, if you’re not failing at that new thing, you’re likely not trying anything new.

Failing at your subject of choice is guaranteed—sooner or later. All the “success” fantasies that you have are great, but don’t forget to expect failure too, and don’t be fooled by all that infantile “positivity” talk either. If you’re not failing, you’re doing it wrong. :0)

Maturity teaches us that failing is as natural as our inevitable success. If you know this in advance, you can be emotionally prepared for when it happens and recuperate from the perceived failures quicker. Being prepared for failure is what, ultimately, primes you for success.

When you don’t expect failure, and it happens, over and over (like it will), it can wreck you emotionally and for some there’s no coming back if you don’t have the tools to recover.

Knowing about failure and how it’s a normal part of life and learning, about how it increases creative thinking, will strengthen your EQ, resilience, confidence, and courage driving you to try more new things.

Lean into your failures and you’ll learn how to fall forward into creativity.

Push Boundaries

Confrontation is not synonymous with attack (contrary to popular belief).

Push the boundaries now and then. Seriously, get curious, ask questions, wonder why and push. Speak up. Speak out. In the beginning of attempting “boundary pushing” we can be a little graceless, but with practise and calm, you’ll overcome anxiety and push a lot nicer against established rules.

This type of discomfort changes us too; it literally shakes up our energy so that it has to reorganize itself back into balance, and when it does this, we’re never the same. Think about your house, it always looks chaotic when we’re rearranging stuff, but when we’re done its, it’s different and feels great.

It’s the same with pushing boundaries. Do something you’re not comfortable with. Talk to someone on an elevator. Make eye contact—and hold it. Talk to someone in the doctors waiting room. Read over someone’s shoulder on the bus. Shake up your energetic DNA. Give someone a compliment and mean it.

In your art, do something no one else has done. My daughter Elle is a great one for this. She loves cooking and baking and is always wanting to put bizarre things in our recipes. I don’t even argue anymore, instead I go with and learn lots. I’ve learned she makes a lot of  great choices!

Still chicken? Then ride the line. Go as far as you can go and embrace that discomfort from just knowing you could cross at any time. Remember you don’t have to cross a boundary if just standing there and thinking about it is enough of an upset. Be aware of yourself and what’s going on. Face it and own it. It will be okay.

Which leads us to something a wee bit bigger.

Take a Risk

You have to be able to take a risk. Any risk, big or small but you have to do it. No one knows what’s out there for you, but you’ll be the first to find out. I know you’re scared. We’re all scared but gaining courage in areas (of risk taking) pay huge dividends fast. The more risks you take the more explosive your creative work becomes—the richer your life and relationships get. You become stronger and more resilient. Do it once, and each subsequent risk gets easier, guaranteed (and especially when you take a few risks close together).

TIP: when you’re preparing to risk know this: you’re only risking your current comfort level. Which includes the fantasy of what you think your life means (and it might not even be true—imagine!); the ability to “go back to sleep” in your life and, slow death. Stagnating art equals stagnating life.

You have to be prepared; for others to reject you or your work. To be right, but thought of as wrong; to be wrong when you think your right. To lose big and small alike. To come up empty-handed instead of playing it safe on the couch.

When you do the same things day in day out, you’re risking nothing. If you want to find your creativity or increase it, let go of the comfortable and predictable pattern your life has become. If you want new answers to old problems, you gotta turn the other cheek. Jesus didn’t mean put up with shit, he meant get a fresh perspective on the “problem” (or stagnation) by risking the prospect of a new solution.

Tip: the path to creativity is also the path to happiness. Who knew?

Know anyone this article will help? Pass it along. The more people there are aware of their inherent creativity the better we all are.

Wanda