30 Lessons in Creativity (I learned while writing Thirty)...
Inspiration favours those who take action.
When it comes to creativity, perfection doesn’t exist.
There is no right or wrong way, only your way.
Creativity requires trust; trust in the process, trust in your voice, trust in yourself and trust in your abilities to create.
There will be moments of joy, genius, and delight and there will be many more moments of frustration, boredom, and monotony. That’s just the way creativity rolls, your job is just to roll with it.
Give your mean, overly-judgemental inner critic some time off – when it comes to your creativity, their nasty opinions are not needed or welcome.
Go for progress, not perfection. Progress will steadily get you to the end, perfection will stop you getting anywhere at all.
Be wary of sharing your creative ideas, vision, or work too early, especially if you’re doing it for external validation, it’s the surest way to sabotage yourself.
If you’re going to ask for feedback be prepared to receive feedback.
The more you use your imagination the more of your imagination you’ll have to use.
Trust that your creative mind already knows what your rational mind can’t quite figure out yet and that your creativity will deliver all the inspiration, ideas, and clarity you need.
The best ideas often burst into your consciousness when you’ve stopped searching for them, and when you stop agonising over whether or not you’ll ever have another good idea again.
The creative process can be SLOW! The best thing you can do is accept that, sometimes, it just takes the time it takes; ideas need time to percolate, creativity needs time and space to breathe, accept this part of the process do something else for a while.
When your creativity feels blocked take a walk – nature can be a wonderful catalyst for creativity.
Find a creative rhythm and routine that works for you and then practice it with purpose and consistency. This will put you in the path of FLOW.
Be warned, FLOW is like crack – once you’ve had your first hit, you’ll be hooked, forever chasing down the blissful state until it tortures you!
Chasing FLOW is the surest way of never achieving it.
Let go of outcomes. Focus on experience.
Accept there will always be people who think you’re crazy following your creative ambitions. That’s okay. Follow them anyway. What else are you going to do?
BE BRAVE.
BE HONEST (even when it feels exposing and scary as hell!)
Don’t censor yourself or your creativity
Creativity will thrive when teamed up with an efficient project manager - magical things will not only get started, they’ll actually get finished.
Creativity needs action otherwise it’s just a nice idea you once had.
Have a plan but be flexible enough to deviate from that plan if inspiration delivers something better along the way.
Trust the direction your creative instincts want to take you in, they’re a built-in GPS – they know the way, even when you don’t.
Lower the stakes. Believing your creative efforts might change someone’s life is a pretty heavy-weight to carry, one that will ultimately crush, suffocate, and most likely kill your creativity. Lower the stakes people. For the love of all things holy, LOWER THE STAKES… it will make the process far more joyful.
Achieving a creative goal is a bit like climbing a mountain, you’ll never reach the summit if you spend all your time looking back admiring the view, you only get to the top by focusing on what’s in front of you, not what’s behind you.
Make your goal to finish what you started. That’s all that’s actually within your control – honour that.
And above all else, remember, it’s meant to be fun!
**** Thirty is now published under the title Which Way to Happiness? ****