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Creativity & You: A Love For All Seasons?

By Dan Goodwin

Just as there are the four seasons in nature, our creative lives also have their seasons.

Each new creative project we take on has its stages of growth and development, its own four seasons.

Sometimes we don’t get past early Spring, or we want to leap straight into the glorious sunshine of summer days and never leave, never experience getting caught in a downpour, struggling to stay upright in stormy swirling winds or shivering in the bleak depths of winter.

But if we are to be truly creative we must approach each season with equal optimism and courage, and the honest intention to create the deepest, most beautiful work we can.

Here’s some of the ways we go through these four creative seasons, and what we have to look forward to in each:

• Spring: Spring is about new growth and fresh beginnings. It's where we start a new creative project with high hopes and a head full of wonderful ideas. This phase often seems the most enjoyable part of creating, as there’s so much promise and expectation. Also, it's free from any thoughts and fears about how we're going to see this project through to its natural conclusion that may later appear and slow us down.
  
  But sometimes we expect to live forever in this season, and begin project after project, never getting very far before abandoning it when it gets challenging for the next bright new prospect.

• Summer: Summer means bright sunshine, the glory of blue skies and endless warm evenings. With our creative projects, Summer is when we’re fully immersed and loving every moment.
  
  We’re creating as a pure pleasure, past the early days of nurturing new growth and into the kind of carefree creating that only comes when we’ve given ourselves the time, patience and space to find that flow.

• Autumn: The highlight of Autumn is the harvest. Seeing the fruits of your Spring planting and almost endless Summer creativity come to bear.
  
  As well as picking these fruits — seeing your creative project ripened and ready — Autumn is a time for sweeping up the fallen leaves, all those ideas and offcuts you didn’t use in this project but can be collected up for future creative ventures.

• Winter: Winter is a time to hibernate, rest and rejuvenate. After a long rewarding project, it’s now you can let yourself appreciate all you’ve achieved and enjoy a well earned rest.
  
  It’s also the time to clear away the last remnants and look forward to the next Spring season, and your new creative projects to come.

Of course the timing of these creative seasons doesn’t necessarily coincide with those in nature. The beauty with our creativity is that we are in control, we have the choice what to create, when to create and how to create it.

Also, we don’t need to create just one project, we can be working on multiple ideas, each in a different season and different stage of evolution, at the same time. Some projects too will have a far shorter lifespan, maybe just hours, whereas others maybe run into months or years.

:: Share Your Experience ::

Which of these seasons of creativity do you enjoy most?

Which do you struggle with, or try to avoid? What can you start to do to get more from these seasons?

Share your experiences and comments about this article and see what others are saying at Dan's blog: A Leap Across A Chasm. •

© Copyright 2007 Dan Goodwin

About the Author | More by Dan Goodwin
Creativity Coach Dan Goodwin is the author of “Create Create!”, a FREE twice monthly ezine for people who want simple and powerful articles, tips and exercises to help them unleash their creative talents. Sign up right now and get your FREE “Explode Your Creativity!” Action Workbook, at www.CoachCreative.com.

06/17/07