21 STEPS TO YOUR MOST CREATIVE SELF

This is the 8th installment in my series 21 Steps To Your Most Creative Self.

Today most of us are focused on work and commitments. In our culture, playing is often thought as wasting time – it is often looked down on as there are no real goals (except to have fun!) Play is a time to forget about work and all those pesky commitments. It can be a time to be social without structure and be creative at the same time. When we play, there is no goal in mind, except to have fun.

What is play?  It has been defined as taking part in an in activity for enjoyment and recreation instead of for a practical purpose.

There are many benefits to play. It:

Relieves stress – play often triggers endorphins which gives one the sense of well-being.

Stimulates your mind – people tend to learn better than they are having fun and when they are relaxed.

Improves learning skills – playing chess or putting together puzzles are things that challenge the brain and will improve memory.

Keeps you young

Teaches children social skills and cooperation with others – something adults can learn too.

“We don’t stop playing because we grow old, we grow old because we stop playing.” George Bernard Shaw

I believe a little bit of play will go a long way – but what can we do for play?

Most of us don’t have access to a trampoline bridge.

Most of us don’t work in offices that have slides.

But, most of us have access to a playground. When was the last time you played on a swing?

Other things to do:

Learn a card trick

Have a game night with friends

Go bowling

Play miniature golf

Play with a dog – if you don’t have one, many rescue groups need dog walkers. While you are at it – have a conversation with the dog.  

Find a child to play with – play a “pretend” game – remember those? Or play Follow the Leader or Hide and Seek (I play Hide and Seek with my dogs!)

Put on music and dance

Put together a puzzle

I may never finish this – but I haven’t given up!

       Make a collage

       Get a coloring book

Coloring was easier as a child I discovered. I need to loosen up!

Research shows play helps prevent Alzheimer’s disease. Playing a musical instrument or playing checkers is helpful.

Who doesn’t play? Mass murderers – studies have shown. 

Playing helps us relax, it takes us away from the “real” world. Through playing, we can be anything, an explorer, a rule, a time traveler – the list goes on. It helps remove the limits to what we believe is possible.

What do you do for play?  I’d like to know!

Closing thoughts:

“Creative people are curious, flexible, persistent and independent with a tremendous amount of adventure and a love of play.” Henri Matisse

“It is a happy talent to know how to play.” Ralph Waldo Emerson

“The true object of all human life is play.” G.K. Chesterton

“The creation of something new is not accomplished by intellect but by the play instinct.” Carl Jung

“Almost all creativity involves purposeful play.” Abraham Maslow

“Some day you will be old enough to start reading fairy tales again.” C.S. Lewis (which I recently did rereading Alice in Wonderland and Aesop’s Fables)

 

 

21 WEEKS TO YOUR MOST CREATIVE SELF

You read that right!  Give yourself permissions to fail!  This is the 7th installment in my series 21 WEEKS TO YOUR MOST CREATIVE SELF. 

“Fail, Fail again, fail better” Samuel Beckett

“You gotta be willing to fail…if you’re afraid of failing, you won’t get very far.” Steve Jobs

People are not born with a fear of failure. Think back to the time when you were a kid. Wouldn’t you try anything?  Didn’t you wonder about how things worked? 

It has been said that failure is a requirement for creativity. Being creative means trying things by trial and error, and if it doesn’t work, you just keep trying and you keep going.

Being wrong can bring about unexpected discoveries. In the art studio – these are often referred to as “happy accidents”.  Relish the uncertainty of not knowing how things are going to turn out. Embrace wondering what will happen.

“Don’t try to create and analyze at the same time.” John Cage.

In fact, I paint in layers. One evening while cooking out, I thought I’d lay a canvas on the grill for a few seconds.  This moment propelled my art in a new direction as I began exploring the effect fire can have on paint.  See below –

So, experiment with things you have never considered using before!  Embrace the things that don’t work, use what you learned and move on to more experimentation.

using both fire and gunpowder

using salt and saran wrap in paint

Below are successful people that failed at first:

EINSTEIN: did not speak until he was four and could not read until he was seven. He was the only person in his graduating class that was unable to get a teaching position.

FRED ASTAIRE:  After his screen test, the casting director wrote “Can’t act, Can’t Sing. Slightly Bald, Not handsome. Can dance a little.”  He kept that note with him his entire life to remind him to never quit trying.

R.H. MACY: started seven businesses that failed before he founded Macy’s.

WALT DISNEY: Was fired by a newspaper editor who said “he lacked imagination and no good ideas.” He also started businesses that ended in bankruptcy before he found success.

THOMAS EDISON: Was fired from his first two job because he wasn’t considered productive. He also made 1,000 unsuccessful attempts at inventing the light bulb.

ABRAHAM LINCOLN: went to war a captain and returned a private. He was also defeated over 20 times before he won a public office.

JERRY SEINFELD: froze the first time he was on stage and was booed off the stage.

VINCENT VAN GOGH: sold only one painting in his lifetime, and that was to a friend.

DR. SEUSS: first book was rejected by publishers 27 times.

The list goes on and on! So, don’t let that fear of failure paralyze you!

What are some of your successes that started out as mistakes?

TAKE A HIKE

Take a walk, a jaunt, a stroll. Get out and strut, saunter, or promenade. I don’t care what you call it, just get up and MOVE!

A recent study at Stanford found creative thinking improves during and after a walk.  While participants in the research were leisurely walking on a treadmill, they were instructed to come up with different uses for an object (like a button – which could be a doorknob in a dollhouse, you get the picture). Most of them were able to come up with 60% more uses for the object than participants sitting down. And, the results were similar whether walking indoors or outside (yes, this surprised me too).

So, that explains why Steve Jobs often had walking meetings. So do  Obama and Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg.  Other walkers?

Beethoven – carried a notepad and composed while walking

Gustav Mahler, who insisted his wife Alma walk with him daily, sometimes as long as five hours

Tchaikovsky walked every morning for 45 minutes and took another walk for 2 hours in the afternoon

Charles Darwin took three walks a day

Woody Allen stopped walking around New York because people recognized him, now he often paces on his terrace 

Composer Erik Satie walked from his suburban Parisian home to Montmarte daily,  a 6 mile walk.  He often missed the train home and walked back at night

“I have walked myself into my best thoughts.” Kierkegaard

“An early morning walk is a blessing for the whole day.” Henry David Thoreau

“Walking is the best exercise. Habituate yourself to walk very far.” Thomas Jefferson

“Now, shall I walk or shall I ride? ‘Ride’ said Pleasure. ‘Walk’ said Joy.” W.H. Davies

“If you seek creative ideas go walking. Angels whisper to a man when he goes for a walk.” Raymond I. Myers

“If I could not walk far and fast, I think I would just explode and perish.” Charles Dickens

“I would walk along the quais when I had finished work or when I was trying to think something out. It was easier to think if I was walking.” Ernest Hemingway

So, get up – take a walk!!!!

Do you have a favorite walk or hike? Do you have any walking rituals?  Can you tell a difference in the way your mind works after or during a walk?

This is week #2 of the series 21 WEEKS TO YOUR MOST CREATIVE SELF

SHOUT, SHOUT, LET IT ALL OUT!

If you really want to live as a creative, you have to declare it! What matters most is that you think of yourself as an artist! (are you singing the title?)

“If you find yourself asking yourself (and your friends), “Am I really a writer? Am I really an artist?” chances are you are. The counterfeit innovator is wildly self-confident. The real one is scared to death.”  Steve Pressfield, The War of Art

Does this sound familiar? We all feel like frauds or fakes at some time or another. The fear of being exposed is real.  Listen – STOP IT RIGHT NOW!

If you need to create, you are an artist. You don’t have to paint, you don’t have to write, but you have to create something that is uniquely your own. BE PROUD OF IT!  SHOUT IT OUT! OWN IT!  What you are creating is yours and yours alone!

Stop comparing yourself to others standards. What matters is HOW YOU THINK! Don’t just think of yourself as an artist, say it out loud! It is powerful. Of course the little demons come in and burrow in our thoughts. But if you say I AM AN ARTIST with confidence and power, the demons will recede.

So, claim yourself as a creative. Believe in your creativity – it is a universal trait of humans after all.

So, repeat after me

I AM A CREATIVE PERSON. I BELIEVE IN MYSELF AND MY TALENT. I AM CREATING A CREATIVE LIFE.

If you have to – stand in front of a mirror and say it.  Better yet – go back to week #1, FIND YOUR TRIBE and tell them, they will understand.

What will you do this week to shout out to the world you are creative? How will you make the commitment?