Muse
Ideas to Get Your Creativity Crankin’
Make your own Influences list, like this. It’ll help hone your creative identity, target your financial resources toward expenses that inspire you, and build your play list and reading list for maximum creative effect.- Make your own Riff List. That’s a list of words or topics to freewrite, paint, sing, improv, or otherwise engage your creativity about, in a totally spontaneous, uncensored way. I can’t write yours for you because I don’t know what words engage your imagination, make you want to create. Could be “mirror,” could be “seashore,” could be “fish taco.” Make your list and pull from it when you’re stuck. Give yourself ten minutes to riff on whatever word you choose. Remember: no self-censoring. No one has to see what you make.
- Remind yourself that every creative act is worth it. It doesn’t all have to be publishable, salable, show-worthy, or whatever. Create for creating’s sake. It all revs your engine. Let it.
- As you live each day, remember that every moment is an opportunity for creativity. The opposite of creativity is addiction, or rigidity. Let go of routine ways of being and old assumptions that keep you stuck. Let your kid go to the store in his pajamas. Make breakfast for dinner. Sing within earshot of your spouse. Dare.
- Don’t forget that no idea is too dumb. Run with it and find the gold inside the lead. If it’s just not there, let it go, but know that if you didn’t at least look, you’d never know.
- Ask yourself why certain things inspire you. And answer honestly. And then ask “Why?” again. Keep going until you reach what you know to be the truest answer. You’ll learn a lot about your creative values this way.
- Pick a theme for the day and follow it: your own through-line. Maybe it’s “red” or “flowers” or “gratitude” or “paperwork.” It almost doesn’t matter; it just wakes you up in a different way. Let it.
- Connect with other creatives. There’s nothing more inspiring than hanging with inspired people. Find some.
- Get a therapist, a coach or a self-help book. Knowing yourself in specific terms fuels creativity, sets your direction, and allows you to let go of the things that hold you back.
- Eat slowly. Move slowly. Speak slowly. It forces you to notice things you don’t normally notice. In fact, pick a day and do everything slowly for the entire day — from breathing to moving to typing to brushing your teeth. It’s astounding what you’ll notice about yourself and the world around you.
- Take pictures. Observe what you notice. Notice what you observe. Even if you’re not a visual artist, if you’re a sighted person, you take in a huge percentage of information about the world through your eyes — and expend a lot of energy in doing so. Allow yourself to record what your eyes think is important. Look back at the pictures later and ask yourself why: Why did this strike me? Keep asking why until you get to what you know to be the truest answer.
- Meditate, pray or sit quietly. Connect with something beyond yourself.
- Turn toward your peripheral vision. Notice what is lying just outside your direct line of sight. How does it look different from the corner of your eye than it looks when you turn directly toward it? Ask yourself what’s in your internal peripheral vision and why you’ve allowed it to stay there. Keep asking why until you get to what you know to be the truest answer.
- Pretend inanimate objects are alive. This needs no explanation. I hope.
- Put yourself in his or her shoes. This also needs to explanation.
- Do something new or outside of your comfort zone each day. Creativity is not made of complacency or comfort-zoning. It’s made of courage and authenticity. Don’t do something inauthentic. Do something authentic and risky.
- Develop a discipline. It’s a muscle. Saving money, cutting out sugar, walking each day, turning complaints into positives — these are all disciplines that will help you develop the strength to come to the journal, the canvas, the potter’s wheel every day, without fail.
- Exercise. It produces endorphins that feed creativity. For real.
- Eat healthy every day and indulge occasionally. Your body and your mind will thank you, and you’ll appreciate the indulgence so much more. Kiss guilt good-bye. It wastes too much damn energy.
- Notice all the different ways that light and shadow appear in the world. Everything is light and shadow. What’s the quality of each in the different haunts you frequent throughout each day? How does it change throughout the day? How does your mood change with it? Knowing yourself in this way can change everything.
- Learn the names of the trees, flowers, birds in your environment. Specificity breeds creativity.
- Travel. It gets you out of the ruts you’ve inadvertently laid down.
- Embrace intention but lose the plan. Set out to create but let your muse take care of the rest. Don’t judge your work before it’s finished. Don’t even plan it. Just let it flow ~ flow ~ flow.
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on December 13, 2011 at 8:58 am
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