Dan Goodwin : Creativity Cookies : Rocky Road Reward

Creativity Cookies

Rocky Road Reward

By Dan Goodwin

The road we travel in our creative lives isn’t always a smooth one. What doesn’t help is that we overlook, forget and sometimes completely dismiss the effort we put in and the progress we make as creative artists. As a result, we mock and criticise ourselves for not creating, when in reality we’ve done so much more than we realise.

This Creativity Cookie is called “Rocky Road Reward” and will help you to start to recognise and reward the progress you’re making in YOUR creative life that you haven’t even been aware of.

Little Nibble:

The fact that you’re with yourself 24 hours a day, 7 days a week means it’s easy to overlook what you’ve been creating. Think about when you haven’t seen a friend for a few weeks, and they ask things like “So how’s the writing going? How’s your daughter doing at school? You must be a few months into that new course, how’s that going?” The point is, things have happened, and events have evolved that you don’t realise have evolved until someone else asks or points it out.

So the first step here towards rewarding your creative efforts is to recognise them.

An effective technique is to use a “Creative Landmarks” chart. This is simply a type of calendar where you note down Creative Landmarks as they happen, things like “wrote 500 words of a new story today” and “Chose quilting materials ready to begin to new quilting project.” Just getting into the habit of noticing when you’ve taken a creative step will help you be more aware of how much more you’re creating than you thought.

Big Bite:

Once your Creative Landmarks chart is in full flow, you can use it to reward yourself, and encourage yourself to create even more.

Each month, take a look back over your chart and acknowledge all the creative steps you’ve made. Take a moment to think about any other acts of daily creativity that you might have overlooked and jot those down too.

Recognise how creative you are and choose a way to reward yourself. This begins simply by giving yourself a pat on the back and saying “Well done you, you’re living the creative life!” Take it further by spending a little time doing something you really love, and having a special celebratory meal. The more you do this, the more aware you’ll become of how creative you’ve been, and that will inspire and encourage you to create even more.

I invite you to head over to CCS to share with us your thoughts and past experiences on recognising and reward your creativity, and to see what others have shared too: Join in on the discussion here. •

© Copyright 2008 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.

09/22/08