I’ve been wanting to write a post about creativity and the internet for awhile now, but I haven’t been able to come up with a good approach. I didn’t want to list links to other sites that talk about creativity - though I do plan on posting information on the creativity sites I frequent. I wanted a post that was more about using the internet to inspire your creativity and kick it into gear.

I feel lucky

After a while of banging my head on my desk, unable to come up with a good angle, I decided to give up control of the post to Google. In the Google search box, I typed “creativity+internet” and clicked the “I Feel Lucky” button. Whatever came up, I would somehow use in this post.

Google sent me to an old (2002) post at Brainstorms and Raves. Almost immediately, one of the section headers grabbed my attention and curiosity - “Helping Creativity - Monkey Mind.” Monkey Mind? I hadn’t heard the term before, so I decided to check it out and headed over to the Inner Peace site.

Though there isn’t a clear definition of what monkey mind is, I think I understand it. Monkey mind is that part of ourselves, that little voice, that questions our ability to accomplish our goals. It’s one of the many things that keep us from experiencing inner peace and confidence. And we hardly ever consciously notice it.

Lesson Learned

I viewed the demo of the Monkey Mind program and had one of those “light-bulb” moments. My monkey mind was getting in the way of writing this post. I was allowing it to get in the way of my creativity. I decided to run the program with my own input.

The Program
The first thing Monkey Mind asks you to do is to enter up to five monkey mind phrases. If you can’t think of any, the program has some common ones that it will use.

Once you’ve entered your phrases, or chosen to let the program provide them, you start typing about your dream or goal in the provided text box. Every so often the phrases you chose freeze your input until you tell the program to continue. The goal is to complete your typing and not let the monkey mind chatter deter you.

Here’s how mine went. . .

(more…)

Over on Successful and Outstanding Blog(gers), Liz has written two follow-up posts to Monday’s 10 Reasons Creative People Make Us Crazy. The points she makes are important and I think somewhat telling.

Creativity isn’t Limited to a Few

In the first of the two posts - We’re All Creative #1: The Bunnies Prove It - Liz makes it very clear that she believes EVERYONE is creative. That’s a belief that we share - it is, in fact, the premise of Your Cre8tivity.

Creative does not equate to artistic. Creative means having the ability or power to create. Every single person in the world is creative. We couldn’t communicate with each other if we weren’t - We all create sentences that make sense to other people every day. We create stories and histories every time we talk about our activities with some one. We create solutions to problems and find ways to get around obstacles.

People who define creative to mean artistic are limiting themselves, not to mention others.

Creativity is Essential

Do you work? Are you a parent? A student?

If so, it’s pretty well guaranteed that you’re applying creativity during your day. Have you ever found a shortcut that saved you some time at work? Ever convinced a toddler to do something they didn’t think they wanted to do? Ever brainstormed ideas for a term paper?

That’s creativity at work.

Today, Liz posted about the importance of creativity in the workplace, but the argument can be extended to cover all areas of life.

If we don’t move forward, we get left behind. The only way to move forward to see or believe in something other than what’s right in front of you - an exercise of imagination. Imagination is creativity. Your dreams and goals are, at their roots, expressions of your creativity.

Still say you’re not creative?
Convince me.

Liz Strauss has an interesting post up over at her Successful and Outstanding Blog(gers) in which she discusses some of the traits of creative people and how those traits affect their work and co-workers. The post is called 10 Reasons Creative Folks Make Us Crazy.

Why Read 10 Reasons Creative Folks Make Us Crazy?

I haven’t read the book she quotes, Creativity:Flow and the Psychology of Discovery and Invention by Professor Mihaly Csikentmihalyi, but after reading her article, I think I’m going to get my hands on a copy. Take a look at Liz’s post and you just might recognize yourself or some of your co-workers when looking over the 10 reasons creative folks drive us crazy. As businesses recruit more and more creative folks, chances are we’re going to come into contact with more and more people like ourselves.

Liz points out that talking about creativity makes us more creative. I have to agree with her afterall, it is the underlying reason we created this blog!

I’ve recently added several new RSS feeds to my list of things to look at each day. One of them, Ezines:Creativity, has proven to have a lot of articles that make me think. One, Befriending Your Creativity, posted on July 20, 2006, raises an important point about how we treat our creativity. Author Jennifer Louden says

(W)e don’t often think about befriending, romancing, inveigling our creativity.

I couldn’t help but reflect on how true that statement is - we plead and argue with our creativity, demand it accommodate us, cry, yell and scream over it, complain about it. But how often do we “court” or entice it to cooperate with us?

Ms. Louden gives some examples of other things we do instead of befriending our creativity before suggesting three paths that can help us to a more friendly and cooperative relationship with our creative side. Her article is a good basis for further thought and discussion. Here are my thoughts on the main points in the article.

Don’t be a Creativity Dragon

Or, as it’s expressed in the article,

If you hoard your ideas, if you hold onto them too tightly, or if you fall in love with a certain expression of your creativity (a particular title or that your idea has to be expressed only as an opera never as a one woman show) you stymie the creative flow. You limit your gift. You increase fear and decrease productivity.

Dragons hoard all the sparkling, glittering treasure for themselves in hidden caves. The treasure is safe, but the only way it can increase is if the dragon goes out searching for more. It can’t grow, change or increase in value. And what value does it really have, if no one but the dragon knows it even exists?

Don’t assume that this idea is the only good one you’ll ever have - in all likelihood there are even better ones floating just behind it. If you hold one too tightly, it’ll block your view of the others.

Expecting the Spanish Inquisition

Ms. Louden uses the Monty Python skit to illustrate the fact that things rarely go as we expect them to go. In fact, we should expect the unexpected. It’s how we deal with it and what we do with it that is important. Her advice -

Expecting the Spanish Inquisition DOES NOT give you permission to be a negative cynical old poop who walks around muttering, “I told you so.” That is living in resentment and that just gets you suffering and stuckness. It simply means when something goes differently, don’t waste your time resisting. Instead, learn.

Make the unexpected into an opportunity. Use it, rather than letting it use you. Even if the experience is initially negative - you can take something good away from it. It may be something you learn about yourself or someone else. It may be a new skill that the situation forces you to learn.

Creating is Physical

Obvious, huh? Well, not really in the sense that Ms. Louden is speaking of. She’s not referring to the outcome of our creative process, but rather to our physical being.

We can change how we create by changing the shape of our body

I’m not sure about this myself, but maybe I simply haven’t paid enough attention to how creative or non-creative I am in different situations. Ms. Louden finds that doing yoga increases her sense of creativity and that creative energy and insights seem to be generated by the practice. It has changed the way she goes about creating.

What do you think? Have you ever tried to make friends with your creative nature? What methods have been successful in courting your creativity? I think most of us would like a better relationship with our creativity but may not be sure how to go about making it happen.

Have you ever wondered why it is that some people seem to have a lot of opportunities thrown at them and other people seem to have only a few?

Recognizing opportunities and options is matter of perception and an exercise in creativity. But without a developed sense of creativity, the only options a person is likely to see are those they have been directly presented with. And some people have trouble seeing those.
Creativity allows us to see more options in our lives. Instead of peering through a keyhole, it opens the door wide, giving us a view of the entire room.

We’ve written before about Bumps in the Road. A creative person is open to seeing the possibilities and the opportunity within an obstacle. They look at it as a challenge. Someone for whom creativity itself is a challenge will most likely see an impediment or problem that must be overcome.

Which would you rather be?
Excited about the possibilities and opportunities inherent in each bump in your path?
or
Depressed because all you see is the the obstacle?

Options, opportunities and possibilities come in all sizes. Some require a large exercise of creativity to see; others require just a small one. They may be simple tweaks to something (an item or process) that already exists, or they may be a completely new idea. Maybe your opportunity begins with something as simple as making a process easier or more efficient for yourself. Maybe the possibility extends to help others.

I’d bet that almost everyone, at some time, has looked at a process or an item and thought of at least one way it could be improved or changed. So we’ve exercised our creativity in this way before. But what’s come of it? All too often, we have the idea and then let it go, letting the possibilities slip through our fingers. It might be because implementing the idea seems out of our capabilities, or because we think we’d be the only person interested in it.

It may take an additional exercise of our creativity to figure out how to put our idea into play. So what if you’re the only person who uses it, if it works for you? So maybe you have to build the prototype out of popsicle sticks and glue. . . You never know what opportunities or options it may open up for you in the long run. You can be certain that they won’t appear for you if you don’t do anything with your idea.

So get out there and exercise your creativity - look for and create your own opportunities and possibilities.

For the last couple of weeks, I’ve been getting ready to move from a shared apartment to my own house. I hadn’t realized just how much there was to do or how much stuff I didn’t have. The result is an effort to find ways to keep the costs and time spent working on the house and move down.

For me, this means thinking creatively and using resources that I haven’t used before. You see, work is about 45 minutes northwest of the apartment. The house is about 15 minutes north of that. So I can’t really make quick trips up to the house and I have to be careful about the number of roundtrips I make, because its takes a little over a quarter tank of gas for each one - with gas prices what they are, I can’t afford to make a lot of trips. I’ve spent several weekday mornings, before work, loading the trunk of the car with boxes and clothes and all those little odd shaped and/or fragile things that need to go. That way, I can make a quick trip up to the house and drop them off.

I have movers that are going to move most of the stuff - including the furniture - from my storage unit. That’s probably one of the most expensive parts of the move. In an attempt to try to manage the costs, I’ve tried to take a good portion of my books and craft supplies up to the house during the various trips I’ve made to clean and do minor repairs.

I’ve discovered that most insects don’t like vinegar - even diluted. There were a few places where ants were coming into the house - a couple of spritzes with a half-and-half solution of vinegar and water has taken care of that. Add a little ammonia to the mix and you have a cleaner that works as well as most of the stuff you buy in the cleaning aisle. Its cheap, effective and better for you and the environment.? Be careful about using vinegar around plants though.? Its too acidic for most.

I’ve learned how to change out doorknobs (both locking and non-locking), put in doorstops so that the doorknobs don’t put holes in the walls, take the acoustic texture off the ceiling? (What a mess that made!), remove and replace towel racks, clean ceiling fans and lots of other things.

Since I’m doing this by myself for the most part, I’ve had to learn by doing.? Each time I complete one of the projects, I feel more confident in my ability to do the next.? I have to admit that there are some that I’ll probably hire someone to do the next time around - but at least I now know how to tell if they’re doing a good job of it!

Thinking about the move and the projects involved in it in a creative manner has given me many more options for accomplishing it while keeping my costs down.? A life-long curiosity and interest in learning how to do new things has stood me in good stead during this transition.? I’m sure that as I start thinking about renovating and remodeling, it will open up even more possibilities.

Why strive to be creative? Because in the long run, creative thinking and living gives you access to more options and possibilities. ? It helps you do more with less and opens up the range of things that you can choose from.? And perhaps the most satisfactory result is that you put your own personal stamp on everything you do.

‘Twas a proposal by Darren that started the game,
To write of wishes and goals and aim.

A good challenge creative would we never deny
And so, in poor verse, here tell you why.

Hours passed by as we scrambled with frantic activity
To tell of our goals and express our creativity.

Just getting started in this blogging thing,
We’re not yet confident about commenting.

So one of our goals, that has become,
To leave our two cents worth, unless it is “Ummmm”

For this blog we wish certain things to provide
And hope that web-wanderers won’t run and hide.

Inspiration, ideas and a friendly place to discuss
Creativity and how it benefits each of us.

Some money to earn, though there we’re behind
Ads must be placed and and audience we find.

Posting more often, our brain it may strain
But to reach our goals, laziness we need to restrain.

We hope that our goals, not written in prose
Provide entertainment and are not too verbose.

Wandering reader, we hope to stay you will chose,
lest hope for success of this blog we should lose.

You have a goal, a deadline. Something appears in your path - an obstacle to reaching your goal. How do you perceive it?

Is it a problem, another meaningless maze you have to get past before you accomplish the end goal? Is it an opportunit to try out that alternate plan your created.

The unexpected provides us with a different perspective, another way of viewing the journey to our goals. Sometimes it even changes the goal itself as we realize that the result we had desired was not what we really wanted.

Everyone has experience with bumps in the road.

As far as writing goes, I’m dealing with one now. I set two goals for myself - 1) to work on Dawn everyday, 2) to post here or over on Shadows Edge every day.

If you look at either blog, or at the word meter for Dawn, it’s pretty obvious that I haven’t stuck to my goals. In this case though, the bump that has kept me from doing so is a good thing. I’m buying a house. It’s taken up a lot of my time over the last couple of weeks and will continue to do so even after I’m settled in.

This bump or delay has made me realize something else - I missed posting and I missed writing. These are things that I want to do and do regularly. So I’m reprioritizing some things. And I’ll be making the time to do the things that I want to do.

Its all in the perspective - look for the challenge and the lesson rather than the obstacle in your way.