When we explore our creative gifts we begin to engage that part of us that touches the unique reason we exist.
Some of us have the luxury to use our creative giftings day-in day-out in our profession. Many others of us however do not consistently have that luxury. Instead we must build something on the side, we engage in fascinating hobbies or business ventures. The dictates of life and financial pressures can minimize the amount of time and resources that we have to dedicate to creative pursuits.
I teach that there are three primary obstacles to individual creativity:
- Emotional Wounds
- Not thinking for yourself
- Mental Clutter
If I can be a little transparent here mental clutter recently has snuck up on me. I feel so busy and overwhelmed right now, my creativity time has suffered. There are so many ideas and opportunities that I want to pursue I am starting to lose intensity and focus and feel overwhelm. This loss of focused intensity on my creative pursuits has slowed my creativity considerably this summer. This post is my effort at re-focus.
There are three powerful tools that I have used in the past that may also help you to make more time for creativity.
- Saying NO without guilt. Remember, this is your life and you decide how you spend it and with whom. I had to say no recently to a trip due to a personal family issue. I felt guilty for postponing this trip for a few hours but I got over it and now know it was the right thing for me to do.
- Schedule Creativity Time; for me early morning works best, my brain seems most creative at this time as long as I had adequate sleep and I am mostly free of family distractions.
- Take time to Analyze Creative Gifts, in writing my creativity course and its creativity test I have found a new fascination with personality tests. One test that I’ve taken recently places test-takers within a personality quadrant. I was categorized as ‘analyzer’. This test gives me an outside and independent perspective on myself and this reminds me to focus on ideas and opportunities that need the skills of an analyzer and to think twice about the ideas that need other gifts or skills.
Most of us have a limited amount of time to work on creativity, of course, there should be no rules about what we should or should not pursue. But in a world of limited resources and time we are wise to focus on the areas that we are naturally gifted in.
If you need to refocus on creativity try these three tools in your own life.
