Are you wanting to become more creative but don’t know where to start? I’ve got you covered! There comes a time in every person’s life when you decide its time for you exercise your creativity and create something for yourself.
For me, this happened a few years back when I was just about to finish University and I realised I hadn’t been doing anything creative for a long time. The solution for me at the time was to gather some paints together and try to paint something, however because I was so out of practice, it didn’t come out the way I wanted it to and that really discouraged me at the time. However, with a little more perseverance I decided to go searching for where my creativity went!
While on this journey of creative discovery, I realised that I really loved playing around with makeup and colours and the rest is history as they say! This was only the beginning of my creative journey though because the more I indulged my creative fantasies, the more inspiration came for even more creative discoveries!
At this point in time, I can say I am able to paint, draw, sew, sculpt with clay, embroider, create jewellery and most importantly I have been able to find my own style! While I am insanely proud of where I am today, its also important to recognise that this takes a lot of time to get right, and it also takes a lot of experimentation.
This blog will hopefully be the start of your creative journey where you can contemplate about what drives you creatively, or you can get a few ideas and experiment with them until you find your match!
1 – Find the Joy!
The very first step for finding your creativity is to find joy. I’m a firm believer that your creativity can only grow or even be present when you are having fun! And the most amazing thing is that it works both ways; when you’re being creative you release a crap ton of dopamine and of course we all know that dopamine is the happiness hormone! If you’re stressed a lot in your daily life and feel like you’re in a creativity rut; my suggestion would be to go back to basics.
Think back to a time when you did something simple just for fun; for example, you can draw your favourite animal or flower, you can paint your favourite colours and see what they look like together, or you could even experiment with the makeup you have to hand and see what creations you can come up with! Put some of your favourite music on and get to work! As long as you’re using your hands and you’re feeling relaxed your creativity will flow.
“Creativity, often hailed as the driving force behind innovation and self-expression, is intrinsically linked to happiness.”
2 – Don’t get discouraged!
The second tip for finding your creativity is to remember you’re on a journey and what kind of journey would it be if you already arrived! It will take time for you to get the skills and knowledge that will come from repetitive practice and experimentation! If you’ve ever sat down to do something creative but it doesn’t come the way you thought it would in your head and you start to feel hopeless, stop. That is the fastest way to kill creativity. Take a breath and recentre your feelings and thoughts.
The best way to approach your creative adventures is to think about them as experiments; this will allow you to adopt a more objective view of your abilities. Along with that, this mindset will help you to continuously think innovatively to come up with better solutions or ideas. This is where your creativity comes into play, when you are thinking innovatively you are being creative! Adopting an experimental mindset has really made the world of difference for me and my creative endeavours because it allows me to view my “failed” creative projects as experiments that need a bit more work.
This mindset is also very helpful to train your brain into being more objective, for example, when I’ve painted a painting that I’m not happy with, instead of being upset that I couldn’t convey my thoughts onto the page, I am able to think about the positives of my painting as well as acknowledging what could have gone better. With experiments, scientists don’t just throw away their research if the experiment goes against their hypothesis, they are able to analyse what was good about the experiment, what they could have improved on and most importantly they are able to use the experiment as a stepping stone in the right direction.
3 – Creativity cannot be compared!
The third tip for becoming more creative is to remember that we as human beings are intrinsically different, and our creativity will all be different! It’s no good following on someone else’s creative journey when you’re not passionate about the same things or to compare someone else’s skill levels and creativity to your own! This will also halt your own creativity as you’ll be more focused on what others are doing when I’ve found that the best creativity comes from doing things in your own specific way!
The most amazing thing about us all being so unique is that there is no right way to do things. The only limit we have is what we put on ourselves. If you think about any of the inventions that we use today, the inventors were able to use their own creativity and innovation to come up with their own solution to a problem and we’ve all adopted their solution! If you think about that on a mass scale, could you imagine how amazing the world would be if we all created our own solutions to our problems and shared it with others who could then be inspired to create their own solutions etc…
The main point I’m trying to get across is that it’s super important to be inspired by other people’s abilities and creativity but don’t become swept up and forget that you are also capable of amazing and creative things as well. When you focus fully on what others can do and forget to nurture your own creativity it can become easy to feel inadequate when it comes time to exercise your creative muscles.
4 – Creativity can come from anywhere!
The fourth and last tip for becoming more creative is to remember that creative inspiration can come from literally anywhere. If you are solely focused on getting creative inspiration from only the internet, then you’re going to be missing out on a whole bunch of potential inspiration!
The best thing you can do for yourself is to use the world around you to be your creative inspiration. For example, if you look outside of your window right now, can you see anything interesting? For me, I can see all of the beautiful trees and the birds that inhabit those trees which has absolutely inspired me to create makeup looks with birds and leaves and flowers etc the world is literally your oyster if you’ll allow it to inspire you.
Once you’re able to get inspiration from anywhere you’ll realise your creativity is like a tap that continuously flows, and you’ll have a million ideas! My advice is also to ensure you note down all of your ideas, even if you just have an interesting thought, make sure to note it down and that way you can come back to it and maybe add to it and turn it into a full-fledged creative masterpiece!
