My 7 tips for a flourishing creative life

I have spent my life battling with the frustration of wanting to create but feeling stuck. I have had young children taking up all my time and energy, I have had times when money was tight, I've had nowhere to work except the family dining table, mental health issues and crippling self doubt. Over the years I have learned that there are some things I can do to overcome feeling stuck and allow my creativity to flow in any circumstance, and I would like to pass them on.

Start with what you’ve got

The greatest excuse not to begin is that you haven’t got what you need - you're lacking workspace, materials, money, equipment, spare time, and so on. I have learned to look at what I already have and begin transforming it. Experience has taught me that the solutions and resources you need can be found along the way. If you are waiting for all those things before you begin you will always have a reason not to start. If time is your issue and all you can spare is 5 minutes in your day, then make those the most creative 5 minutes possible. Just watch and see those 5 minutes become 10.

Leave something unfinished

It’s easy to create once you’re in the flow of it. By stopping with just a tiny bit left to finish, or quickly beginning the next project while you’re still motivated, you won’t have to overcome that blank page when you begin again next time.

Humble curiosity

A lifetime of learning is the way to stay fresh and excited about what you’re doing. Be interested in all kinds of things. A creative life is fed by a deep well of random ideas, images, unrelated processes, and so on. So feed yourself. Find out what you can learn from each person you interact with. Look things up when you don’t understand. Figure out how you could do it yourself, how you could replicate it, or adapt it for your own needs. Learn like a child, always.

Stop waiting for inspiration

That feeling of being inspired comes and goes. It’s great to have a plan to capture those ideas when they bubble up (sketchbook? Notes on your phone?) but expecting to only work when you feel inspired will leave large unproductive gaps in your creative life. Creativity works in cycles – sometimes ideas are being generated, at other times we are in a more reflective mood and evaluating comes more easily to us. The secret to living a highly creative life is to just keep turning up and doing the work even when it’s hard. Have a plan to develop skills in your weakest areas and keep on standby some practice exercises for when you’re feeling stuck. Keep a note of all those silly, impossible, impractical, ridiculous ideas you have, and when you need it you’ll have a treasure trove of starting points to explore. 

Choose to be the kinder voice

That critical annoying voice in your head that keeps battering your confidence is not actually the enemy of a creative life. It can be very useful for successfully evaluating your work, but you have to learn to tame it! Radical kindness is the key. Being kind to yourself might look like giving yourself permission to try again. It looks like searching for what is great about the thing that didn’t go as planned. Kindness looks for what you learned by having a go. Kindness takes the focus off the outcome and values the process. It aims for excellence, not perfection. Kindness can be practiced and a great way to begin is to find a piece of art that you don't really like (by another artist) and look for something wonderful about it.  Maybe the colours are uninspired, but did they make some fabulous marks? Perhaps the proportions are all wrong, but the character was captured perfectly?

Don’t place too much value on any one person’s opinion

Every piece of feedback, good or bad, is useful if we give it the right value. It helps us grow and improve. But sometimes we believe if we can just impress THAT person, we’ve made it. Even the opinion of a so-called expert (successful artist/gallery/publication) is just an opinion and it needs to be weighed with all the rest. Otherwise you are handing over the power to make or break your confidence to someone else. Praise and rejection are not what defines the value of your work.

Creativity is not "art", it’s a way of life

Creativity is spotting opportunities where others see obstacles. It’s stepping outside of convention. It’s trying something a different way even though you had a system that was working (because why not?). When you allow creativity to stir every corner of your life a beautiful thing happens: you feel inspired, alive and free. You can then take this and apply it to your craft, which is your own unique expression and contribution, not the limit of your whole creative world.