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Be More Creative:

5 Powerful Ways to Say “YES!” to Creativity in Your Life

By Dan Goodwin

There are many ways we deny permission to ourselves in our creative lives and prevent ourselves and our creativity from flourishing and developing as well as it can do.

Much of the time, we don’t even realise how we’re doing this, and though we feel frustrated, blocked or uninspired, we forget how easily we can allow our creativity to bloom.

Here are five powerful ways to say YES! to being more creative in your life:

1. Say YES! to the possibility of achieving your creative dreams. If we don’t ever expect to release our record, publish our novel, stage our events, then it’s easy to develop an attitude of “Why even bother starting if it’s never going to lead to anything?”, and produce half-hearted, diluted efforts at best.
   
   But if we create as if we WILL achieve all we want, we ensure we give as much as possible to our creative work and make it the most true, honest, and full expression of ourselves that we can.
   
   
2. Say YES! to feeding your creativity with new inspiration. If we were to go and live in a cave miles from civilisation, we may create a lot initially but pretty soon we’d crave fresh stimulation. Yet many of us starve our creativity in this way when inspiration is in abundance all around us.
   
   Think of the many ways we can stimulate our creativity, the places we can visit, the books we can read, the people we can mix with, the music we can listen to, the groups we can join, and start exploring some of these right away.
   
   
3. Say YES! to sharing your creativity. Many of us who are creative keep it to ourselves, fiercely protecting our creative identities for a number of reasons, from the fear of being asked to perform or be creative on demand, to being afraid of being stereotyped as inconsistent, flaky or unreliable.
   
   But by sharing our creativity, at first with those of similar mind and interests, we open up a huge new world of support, inspiration, connections and collaborations, that we simple cannot have if we keep our creativity completely to ourselves.
   
   
4. Say YES! to developing creative routines. Many of us see creativity as a spontaneous event and not something you can turn on and off like a tap. But how well does holding this perception actually serve us?
   
   By developing creative routines, such as creating for 15 minutes every morning, whether we feel like it or not, we begin to provide the opportunities for our creativity to flow more freely than if we just wait around passively and powerlessly, hoping for inspiration to strike.
   
   
5. Say YES! to creative opportunities. There are opportunities all around us. But if we close our minds to this possibility it can seem like we’ll never get that book deal, our play on the stage, or our paintings in a gallery.
   
   If we open our minds and hearts to opportunities, actively seek them out and hold the belief that opportunities ARE all around us, then recognise and take these opportunities when they present themselves, we can move our creative work forward in huge leaps and bounds. •

© Copyright 2006 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.

10/31/06