5 Ways To the Creative Heart

The Creative Year…Being Who You’ve Never Been, Seeing What You’ve Never Seen

Creativity is the greatest gift we as humans have to offer. Once we get out of our own way, we allow ourselves to create our best work. Never Settle. Let’s make this the year of the Thriving Artist. It’s Time for us to each make our dent in the Universe.

1. It Begins with a Mindset. Declare out loud, on business cards, on social media, exactly Who and What you Are. This is not a time to be vague! Michaelangelo declared he was from a noble wealthy family. He acted this way, he spoke this way, he approached patrons in this way. Everyone accepted his story. Even though it wasn’t true….he made it True. Take your art seriously and others will, too. Never accept what others label you to be. Only by You deciding who you are, do you choose your role and identity in the world.

2. As you believe it, you become it. This is not faking anything. We are all works in progress. None of us are done becoming ourselves. We create ourselves day by day as we create Great Art. “We are all apprentices in a craft where no one becomes a Master.” Earnest Hemingway

3. Every Day, search out the New and Unexplored. Every work of art we create, constantly reinvents our Selves. Spirit continues to learn and grow with each painting, writing, acting, dancing project we attempt. Our Story continues to grow and expand with each creative act. You don’t know what you can do until you try it. None of us truly knows our capabilities until we attempt something new.

4. An Artists Job is not to be perfect, but to be creative. One trait of people who live to be 100 or more, is stubbornness. “Be stubborn in your vision and flexible in the details” Jeff Goins.

5. Art is the foundation, the skeleton that holds society together. It’s not a frivolous costume we wear occasionally. Poetry, painting, sculpture, the theater are the basic ingredients to a healthy, sound, risk-taking culture. The Art of the Stories we tell sets the pace for all of life. “Ultimately, your gift to the world is who you are. It is both your gift and your fulfillment.” A.H.Almass

So what are the big sources of inspiration in your life? What has influenced you the most? Get inspired, then get the Imagination fired up and Create. That spark created ‘A Wrinkle in Time’, ‘Winnie the Pooh’, and ‘Star Wars’, as well as paintings by Leonardo, Beardsley, and William Morris.

“The only true voyage would be not to travel through a hundred different lands with the same pair of eyes, but to see the same land through a hundred different pairs of eyes.” Marcel Proust

More inspiration for your expanding mind, The Tribe of Mentors by Timothy Ferris and Real Artists Don’t Starve by Jeff Goins.