I’ve always been fascinated by creative people. And when I say creative, I cast a broad net.
I don’t only think of actors, painters, and writers as the creative class, but also someone that can decorate a room beautifully. Or someone who can pull together an incredible meal using the leftovers in their fridge. All of these people blow my mind with their skills.
I wasn’t born with these innate talents, but I’m a firm believer that we can all work to build up our creative muscle.
In my previous job, I handled corporate events for the local business newspaper. About 20 times a year I’d pull together an event. Some were small networking mixers, others were large formal award luncheons.
This wasn’t the job of my dreams. I haven’t been throwing amazing parties for friends and family for years and decided to make a career out of it.
Instead, I have strong organizational and planning skills which led to my boss (at the time) offering me a promotion from marketing coordinator to the event manager position.
Now for the creative, beautiful, straight-out-of-Pinterest feel that event planning requires- that did not come naturally to me at all.
I had to push myself to come up with ways to make annual events feel fresh and exciting every year.
About a year ago, I left that job and went back to the more traditional work that I love- media relations. The one downside of this job is I don’t need to tap into my creative thinking nearly as often.
Sure, I try and tweak a press release so it’s more interesting, but overall when working with the media, facts are critical and the creativity needs to left for after hours.
And come to find out that is a total blessing! Now I am pushing myself to be creative outside of work, and it has been surprisingly rewarding and fun.
I’ve taken a few painting classes, I write every day for this blog, and I’m always trying to up my Instagram game. The possible creativity outlets are endless.
If you are interested in stepping up your creativity, but find yourself struggling, I highly recommend Big Magic: Creative Living Beyond Fear by Elizabeth Gilbert.
This book is really entertaining, but I also feel like Elizabeth heard my inner dialogue of self-doubt and helped me work through it. She normalizes the worries we all feel when we put something out to the world.
She also cuts off any idea that we need to wait until something is “perfect” before we share it with others.
This bestselling author says she could point out something on every page of each book she has written and critique something that could have been improved.
But where would she be if she put each project on hold until it was perfect? Well for starters she never would have published Eat, Pray, Love. Or have Julia Roberts play her in a movie. Or work with Oprah. I’m sure her list would be much longer, but there are some highlights.
Big Magic helped me realized everyone goes through worries about not being good enough.
And as much as I thought some people were just blessed with being born talented, Elizabeth Gilbert changed my view on that thought. She says those who are brave enough to put their work out to the world, and then are rejected time and time again, but still persist – they are the talented ones.
She also points out the importance of not relying on your craft to pay your bills. In fact, even after she became a well-published author, she kept her day job. Why? Because she didn’t want her creativity to have to carry the wait of paying her rent.
I loved this idea too. The concept that working on creativity for a few hours a night or on the weekends is a great place to be in life.
You don’t have to quit your day job to pursue your dreams.
Do both! This way your creative side doesn’t feel the pressure of keeping that roof over your head.
Creativity is a blessing. I’m learning that it’s not something only a lucky few get to enjoy. The more I tap into my creative side, the more I enjoy all the everyday things.
A meal also becomes a cool photography opportunity. A passing thought becomes a blog post. The list goes on and on.
So why turn down opportunities to be creative just because you might not be “The Best”? Life is too short to only be open to the idea of rejection.
