The buzz of an alarm clock woke you up this morning. You showered, dressed, saw your family off to school and work, before joining the masses commuting to their nine to five jobs. You sit in traffic listening to the radio and wondering when your life turned into this.
Why are you spending most of your days at a job you don’t care about anymore? Why are you working so hard to build someone else’s company? Whatever happened to your ideas … your dreams? Whatever happened to you?
When you were younger you had time to dream, to create. You painted. You drew. You wrote stories that brought your thoughts to life. You wrote songs that laid your heart bare to the world. Doing all of that made you feel so alive.
Sometime between then and now you stopped creating. You got too busy. Life got in the way of that meditative time alone when your mind was free to imagine and dream. I know how it happens because it happened to me too.
Now you’re ready to reclaim your creativity, recapture your dreams, and feel alive again. Here are some steps to help you get started.
How to reclaim your creativity …
Remember that it’s possible. Look back at your old work. Read a story you wrote in college. Look through your old art portfolio. Find those recordings of songs you wrote and listen to them. Don’t be judgmental or harsh with yourself. Leave your inner critic in the next room, and look, and listen with an open heart. Remember how the act of creating made you feel.
Find inspiration. Go to a museum. Look at the work of your favorite artists online. Listen to the music you love. Read an author that inspires you.
Write down your ideas. Inspiration hits you when you least expect it. Carry a small notebook with you where you can jot down ideas when they hit. Often times, I get great ideas for stories or blog posts in bed just before sleeping. If I don’t write the idea down, I never remember it in the morning. The ideas that you write down will help you when you’re sitting in front of a blank page feeling stuck.
Set aside time. This may be the hardest part. Having no time is the reason you stopped creating in the first place, but I assure you that if you make art one of your priorities, you’ll be able to find time. Start with just fifteen minutes a day. Just take fifteen minutes everyday to work on creating something. You might have to wake up fifteen minutes earlier to do it. You might have to give up a television show to find the time. Look at your schedule and find fifteen minutes that you can dedicate to your art. Once you get into creating, that fifteen minutes will soon become thirty or an hour or more.
Enjoy the process. For me the best thing about art is the feeling I have while I’m doing it. Don’t judge yourself. Don’t look at what you’re making, decide it sucks, and then give up. Be in the moment and enjoy the process of creating. Feel the joy in it and start to live again.
