How to Tap Into Your Creativity and Ignite Your Creative Muse
How to Tap Into Your Creativity and Ignite Your Creative Muse Creativity often feels like an abstract concept, yet it’s a vital part of our human experience. It’s about bringing something new and unique into existence, something that has never existed before. Every person has a unique lens through which they view and experience the world. Creating and expressing yourself through the creative process allows you to share this perspective with others and discover who you truly are. Creativity is not about perfection; it’s about sharing who you are in this very moment. When you view creativity as a journey of self-discovery and expression, you grant yourself the freedom to experiment, try new things, and release the pressure to create something perfect. Embrace creativity as a process, and you might be surprised at where it leads you and who you become along the way. My Personal Journey with Creativity Recently, I struggled with my own creativity a lot. I was exhausted from work, juggling multiple tasks every single day, striving for perfection, and spending my free time distracted. I leaned into my fears too much, didn’t allow myself to experiment, and put immense pressure on myself. I tried to control the creative process with my analytical mind, imposing limitations on what I thought I was “supposed” to create. I forgot to ask myself what I wanted to create and what brought me joy. All this prevented me from enjoying the creative process. I didn’t allow myself to be still and create more silence and space in my life. Yet, I realized that the source of all great ideas comes from moments of rest and enjoyment. Have you noticed how great ideas often come when you least expect them, when you’re relaxed and present? You don’t need more inspiration or extraordinary events to start creating. Sometimes, the simplest things can trigger powerful creative ideas. When you’re relaxed, present, and aware when you pay attention, you start to have all the greatest ideas. You don’t need to ‘’search for more inspiration’’, you don’t need more information, or have extraordinary things happening in your life to feel inspiration and start creating. Sometimes it’s the most mundane and simple thing that can trigger a thought, an emotion, a memory that is so powerful that you can’t help but need to express it through your creative work. But are you aware and present enough to notice it? Or do you distract yourself constantly, try to avoid boredom and constantly watch over your shoulder what somebody else is doing, instead of digging deeper into who you are and asking yourself what you really want to create? Embracing Boredom Fall in love with what you create Another thing that helped me is to let myself to be bored, be still, don’t try to search for distractions all the time and stimulate my mind constantly. When you create more stillness in your life, ideas often appear in your head spontaneously, without effort, without you having to force anything. I have a difficult time dealing with boredom myself. I often seek distractions, but now I’m learning to sit with my boredom and be aware when it happens. I believe that without boredom, there is no creativity. Allow yourself to be bored, be present, and don’t seek instant gratification. When you enjoy the process of creating, it reflects in your work and influences the end result. Your energy, state of mind, and presence shine through your creations, attracting and touching others. How often we just create something with hopes to get somewhere, to receive the praise, the money, the recognition, which makes the process of creating itself so hard to enjoy. When you don’t enjoy the process itself, when you’re not vibing with yourself, it’s usually reflected in your creative work and influences the end result of your creative work. This directly influences your energy when you’re creating something, as your state, your energy usually shines through the things you create. And when I personally see a person who is so devoured by the process itself, so present, so open, I can’t help but be attracted and touched by the things that she creates. What about you? What makes you stop and enjoy somebody else’s creative work? Have you ever thought about it? Nurture your energy and be aware Nurture your inner self, and your energy, and pay close attention to how you feel when you’re creating. As it’s exactly this energy that will allow you to create something great. Your high energy state makes art inevitable and touches people around, even if they cannot sometimes explain logically what attracted them to your art in the first place. We would like to rationalize and analyze, and explain everything logically, but many things in our lives happen unconsciously and cannot always be explained logically. Too often we try to control a creative process with out analytical mind, when in fact, your analytical mind has nothing to do with creativity, it can though, help you to bring something to life, once you start and act on your idea. I really like this idea, that I read for the first time in Elizabeth’s Gilbert book called “Big Magic” – “All the ideas are already exciting in the universe, and it’s not you who are directly responsible to investing them. They come to you when you’re ready to receive them, very briefly, when you are aware, when you pay attention, when you’re present. And if you have an idea, but you don’t act on it, it will find somebody else who is ready to take action on it and bring it into life.” I found that seeing all creative ideas this way allows you to detach yourself from the outcome. If your idea works out – great, but if it doesn’t it’s fine too, as it wasn’t completely your fault. So if you’re constantly searching for ideas, and forcing a creative process it isn’t the best strategy for creativity, what should you do
14 Ways to Feed Your Creative Muse
14 Ways to feed your creative muse “The universe buries strange jewels deep within us all, and then stands back to see if we can find them. The hunt to discover those jewels––that’s creative living.” ― Elizabeth Gilbert, Big Magic: Creative Living Beyond Fear It’s very easy to get lost in everyday mundane tasks, things you need to do every single day and forgot why you started in the first place. While it does important to show up every day and get things done, it’s vital don’t forget your bigger purpose and remember why you do what you do. It’s essential to feed your creative muse regularly. People aren’t born creative or talented, it’s a myth. In fact, every person on this earth has something that only she can create and share with this world. Although, we somehow let to convince ourselves that creativity is something that is accessible only to several chosen people. You have an access to this creative energy within you all the time. You don’t need more inspiration, looking at what others are doing, somebody else’s permission, a perfect location, and a perfect time to start creating. We need to stop everything outside of ourselves to control our creativity. And learn to look inside of ourselves to find it instead. Even when you find your life purpose and your life calling, it’s still can be hard to do creative work. It’s hard to face a blank canvas, to face the unknown, and not always be sure of how you will create something that has never excited you before. Or whether you will be able to monetize your passion and creative work. There will be moments when you will be afraid to speak about your creative work and sell it. But I personally believe that it’s possible to monetize any passion you have and make a living doing it. A lot of fear will come out when it comes to selling, but you can overcome these fears and live doing what you love. Creative work doesn’t come with guarantees, there will be a lot of uncertainties, a lot of fears and limiting beliefs that you will have to face on your creative journey. It will be hard to put your “imperfect” creative work out there. There will be moments when you’ll feel stuck, and won’t know what you do or where it will lead you. The only thing you need to do is to start, you will figure everything out through a creative process. When you create you feel inspired, but when you wait, you feel stuck and it makes you lose the momentum. As Pablo Picasson once said: “Inspiration exists, but it has to find you working.” So what are you waiting for? What are the most common obstacles we have face when it comes to doing creative work? “Fear is always triggered by creativity, because creativity asks you to enter into realms of uncertain outcome. This is nothing to be ashamed of. It is, however, something to be dealt with.” ― Elizabeth Gilbert, Big Magic: Creative Living Beyond Fear Your fears are not unique, almost every person on this earth has the same fears: You’re afraid that you don’t have a talent. You’re afraid that might be rejected, criticized, misunderstood, ridiculed or ignored. You’re afraid that everything was done already and that there is no market for your creative work. You’re afraid that somebody might steal your ideas, so it’s better never to share them and keep them hidden in your closet. You might think that your work isn’t important enough to share it. You’re afraid that your work is ridiculous and that nobody needs it. You’re afraid that you don’t have what it takes to do creative work. You’re afraid that you don’t have a degree, are not qualified enough, or even think who are you to speak about this? You’re afraid of upsetting your family, friends, or even people you don’t know. You’re afraid of what others will say about you when you share what you do and your work. You’re afraid of facing your inner demons and limiting beliefs. You’re afraid that you will never be able to create anything extraordinary. You’re afraid that it’s too late to start. You’re afraid of success You’re afraid of facing the unknown. I bet that you have at least several of these fears that are holding you back. There will be many obstacles on your way if you decide to do creative work, but it doesn’t mean that you won’t be able to deal with them. It’s when coming back to your values, big vision, your purpose and creating powerful habits and daily routines will help you to keep creating. What are the most common hurdles to doing creative work? Fear of uncertainty Fear is nothing more than an unpleasant feeling. Thoughts play an important role in maintaining, creating, and exacerbating our fears. When you start creating something, you step into the realm of the unknown. We tend to see the realm of the unknown as something bad, and horrifying. But nothing great can be created in the known, the unknown is the only place where possibilities exist. It’s natural for a human being to be afraid, to search for comfort, pleasure, and the known. Your brain wants to keep you safe. Our fears are there for the reason, they evolved to help us to handle challenging situations. Don’t try to fight fear, avoid it, or respond to it on autopilot. But rather try to make room for it, breathe into it, notice it, acknowledge it and expand your awareness about it. Be pleasant and welcoming with your fear, talk to it. Recognize that you’re on the same team. Genuine confidence isn’t the absence of fear, but a transformed relationship with your fear. I love this speech that Elizabeth Gilbert created to talk about her fears: “Dearest Fear: Creativity and I are about to go on a road trip together. I understand you’ll be
How to Start Building Self-Confidence
How to start building self-Confidence I was reflecting a lot about confidence and the role it plays in our everyday lives for the past several weeks. I have always been quite a shy person, but recently I started to notice how the lack of it was preventing me from taking consistent action in my business, and how it shaped my behaviour around other people. The topic of confidence is complex and multidimensional. What works for other people might not work for you. Although, there are still some universal techniques that can help you on your journey of building your self-confidence. We don’t want confidence just for the sake of it, we want it for achieving our goals, building a better life, to perform better in all areas of our lives like a business, relationships, sports, public speaking and so on. So if you had more confidence how your life could be different? How would you perform in your everyday life? What kind of person would you be and what would you do? Confidence is usually defined as the ability to trust yourself and your abilities. Often, confidence doesn’t come naturally, nobody is born with it. The biggest misconception about self-confidence is that I have to feel confident before I take action. Although, before you take action and practice the skill you would like to master over and over again you cannot start feeling confident. The more you practice the more confident you feel. The willingness to take the first step and to practice is already an act of courage and confidence. I will speak more about why we tend to lack self-confidence, and exercises you can do to help you to start gaining confidence. With time and practice, you can start feeling more confident in some areas of your life. But to be honest it’s a never-ending story. Because as soon as a new challenging situation will arise you can start feeling lost again. That’s why you need to have some reminders and techniques that will help you to cope, process complex thoughts and emotions, and get back on track. That’s why it’s vital to understand how your brain evolved and how it works, what stories it tells you, and how these thoughts and emotions prevent you from doing what is important to you. Why do we lack self-confidence? I probably have never met a person who was confident in EVERYTHING she was doing. Many things that we do today easily and naturally were a struggle at some stage of our lives. But now we feel confident about them, so we take them for granted and think that it was always the case, although, it wasn’t. When you were a child you couldn’t write and read, but you have been doing it for such a long time, that sometimes you start to take these skills for granted as if you have always been able to do that. There are five main reasons why people lack confidence: Excessive expectations. Have you ever started anything new and expected to be perfect in doing it, and wanted immediate results? And when you met understood that it’s hard, that practice brings you discomfort, and most likely, in the beginning, you will suck, you quit? It’s important don’t be a perfectionist at this stage of your journey. Harsh self-judgment. Does your mind judge you? Says that you’re not good enough, that you don’t have what it takes, that everything you do sucks, that somebody can do it better than you? Maybe quite often you feel like an imposter. It’s totally normal, the human mind has evolved to think negatively, to judge, criticize and predict the worst. Preoccupation with fear. We all have our own fear, it can be fear of rejection, fear of judgment, fear of failure, or fear of embarrassment. But fear itself doesn’t affect our confidence. It’s when we start to drown in it, to worry about it – it becomes dangerous. The more we’re preoccupied with our fear, the more it will affect our self-confidence in a negative way. Lack of experience. We can’t have an experience, until we start doing something, start making mistakes, and start learning. Until we have experience we can’t expect to feel confident in any field, be it speaking on camera, becoming a web designer, or an artist. Lack of skills. It’s natural to feel a lack of confidence until we start developing skills in any field. For example, you would like to speak a foreign language, but for doing that you need to practice, you need to try, and until you do, you cannot expect to become fluent. The more you practice the more confident you will feel. It’s a natural order of things. How the human mind works The human brain evolved to think negatively. It evolved to help us survive and to keep us safe. Our world looks completely different from the one hundreds of thousands ago, although, the human brain stayed the same. I used to think that something was wrong with me when I criticized myself, compared, judged and predicted the worst-case scenario, but the truth is that it’s just a part of being a human and having a human brain. It can sound dark and negative, but for me, it was kind of liberating. For such a long time I was watching people who kept saying just be positive, just set goals and achieve them, just take action and show up confidently for your business. So I was thinking that something was wrong with me when I struggled with fear, and anxiety, and was paralyzed by my thoughts. I fused with my thoughts, believed the stories my mind was telling me and perceived it as some universal truth about myself: “I can’t do it, I’m not good enough, I don’t know how I’m lazy, I lack motivation, I’m an imposter until everything is perfect I can’t take action.” No wonder I had anxiety all the time, couldn’t relax, and couldn’t
How to Process and Keep in Check Complex Emotions as a Small Business Owner
How to Process and keep in check complex emotions as a small business owner “If you want to master your life, you have to learn to organize your feelings. By becoming aware of them, you can trace them back to the thought process that prompted them, and from there you can decide whether or not the idea is an actual threat or concern, or a fabrication of your reptilian mind just trying to keep you alive.” ― Brianna Wiest, The Mountain Is You: Transforming Self-Sabotage Into Self-Mastery There are so many successful business owners and entrepreneurs who show how successful they are. They are trying to sell you their formula and roadmap for success. Just do it, just set the goals, just show up, just do the hard work, stop procrastinating, just be happy, and earn 6 figures. Most of us fall for these formulas and roadmaps, because we want a simple answer for complex problems, we would like to have a quick fix, a magic formula without the pain of everyday complex work. We’re so afraid to feel lost, not knowing where to move, and not having all the answers right away. But the truth is that if you choose to carve your own authentic path in most cases you will be lost. And it’s totally OKAY! The question is what will you do when you feel anxiety, stress, pressure, sadness, fear, grief, and rage in your everyday life when at the same time you try to build your business? Will you be able to respond to these emotions properly and move ahead despite them, or will you be lost in your thoughts, and feelings, feel stuck and paralyzed, and live in fear? Will you learn to surf the waves when they appear? And they will appear, I can guarantee you that. ALLOW THESE FEELINGS TO PASS THROUGH You’re not supposed to feel happy all the time. You’re not supposed to be positive all the time. Your mental, and emotional psychological intelligence is determined not by being able to feel positive all the time, but by your possibility to process complex emotions of sadness, anxiety, fear or guilt. When you don’t allow these emotions or think that something is wrong with you because you feel this way you get stuck on these emotions. You bury them inside of you, and everything becomes a trigger. It’s okay to cry when something sad happens, it’s okay to feel lost and not know what your next step will be, it’s okay to feel angry when you see injustice, it’s okay to be afraid when you do something you have never done before, it’s okay fail and move on. It’s important to learn to respond properly to these feelings, instead of just reacting to them automatically. Be aware of these emotions, allow them, and acknowledge that they are there and that they will be a part of your everyday life. But you can choose don’t be stuck on them and move forward. TAKE EVERYTHING OUT OF YOUR HEAD If you feel really stuck in your thoughts, feelings and fears try to talk to somebody about it. Often everything looks so much more complicated in our heads. It can be a good friend, a coach, a mental health specialist, or even you. You can journal about the way you feel, and talk your ideas out as if you were speaking with somebody else. Often taking everything out of your head makes everything simpler, and helps to see the situation in a more objective way and move on, instead of being stuck on your emotions and thoughts for a long time. It can help you to cope with the resistance you feel inside as well. TAKE THE TIME YOU NEED You don’t need to have all the answers right away. Sometimes it’s a hard pillow to swallow as we want everything to work from the first time, fast, and get instant gratification. But growth and transformation happen in small steps. You expand your comfort zone and you need some time to get used to it. Often if you rush changes, even if it’s positive changes, you are more likely to come back to where you started. We are human as beings who didn’t develop by searching for happiness, but by searching for comfort, a familiarity which helped us to survive as species. If you desperately need instant gratification every single day, set a small simple goal to take action every single day. You will surprise when you will be in one year if you stick to it. PAY ATTENTION TO YOUR TRIGGERS When we are triggered by something we tend to feel sad and get defensive. Although, in many cases, triggers can be a very helpful tool that can help to improve our lives. Triggers are not random, often they are the signals that try to attract our attention to some part of our lives that need healing or progress. So when something triggers you it’s a very bad idea to ignore it and just get upset. You just need to stop taking everything personally, dig deeper inside, uncover these issues, process them, learn from them, and adapt your behaviour for the future. It will improve the quality of your everyday life a lot! STOP TRYING TO AVOID DISCOMFORT As I mentioned before when you try to grow, try to do things you have never done before, learn something you have never been taught before, and unlearn toxic behavioural patterns that were normal for you as a child you will feel discomfort. Discomfort is not there to punish you, it’s just trying to show you that there is something more for you, that you deserve better, and that you are able to change. So instead of complaining that everything is hard and bad and that the world is trying to punish you, you can choose to listen, learn, and start changing your life. The only thing that is preventing you from changing and living
How to Find the Courage to Put Yourself Out There
How to find the courage to put yourself out there ”The willingness to show up changes us, It makes us a little braver each time.” – Brené Brown I’m not ready. I have nothing to say. Who will listen to me? There are thousands of people who said it before. I’m afraid of what people will say and think of me. I need a website. I’m not qualified enough to speak about this topic. I didn’t figure out my niche yet, so I need to wait before showing up. I need to learn more about business, blogging, social media, and marketing… What if they laugh at me? Everybody thinks that I’m weird. How many times did you want to start that blog, or that business, or speak your mind openly, but you just couldn’t force yourself to do that? All these invasive thoughts, self-doubt, and fears come out and you just stay silent. Probably you even felt guilty and beat yourself up because I couldn’t find the courage to show up. The truth is you don’t need a website, a logo, a niche, or somebody’s else permission when you start putting yourself out there. Before you do it, everything is just a theory. Believe that you will be able to figure everything out on your way, have some faith in your abilities, give yourself a credit, and practice self-compassion. I wish somebody has told me these things when I have just started my first business. Start taking action today Even if you have no idea where to start, start somewhere, start small, start slowly, but just don’t be trapped in your head thinking, instead take an action. The truth is that doing will get you much faster than thinking and researching. When I started my first teaching business I wasted so much time doing trivial stuff. I was building my website, creating my logo, learning tech stuff, and creating endless to-do lists every single day. I wasn’t aware enough to see that I was so full of fear and self-doubt and that I kept pushing away the hardest things I actually needed to do like blogging, connecting to people, reaching to people, and putting myself out there. No wonder I didn’t have any results in business. It’s natural for us as humans being afraid of judgement, rejection, and the unknown. By putting yourself out there you’re executing the act of courage every single day, you train your courage by being courageous. You don’t know what the outcomes of your actions will be, but you still find the courage and do it. I believe that not only it will help to train your courage muscle, but it will help you to start creating a community for your future business. You will learn to embrace and own your story, and your authenticity, and let go of fear to be vulnerable. It will help you to find your unique voice and the way you would like to show up. Isn’t it amazing and so needed before you even figure out your niche, have a website, and know your ideal client?! Always be aware You’re not your thoughts, always remember them. It’s so easy to start identifying yourself with your thoughts and don’t see any difference. Your thoughts can make you feel miserable and make you suffer a lot if you let them. The natural state of our brain is to worry and search for the next bad thing that is about to happen, it’s what helps us to survive as species. That’s why you need to learn to practice awareness. The next time a negative thought will arise, when you try to put yourself out there, just stop, be aware of it, notice how it feels in your body and still do what you wanted. You can even start practising journaling, to help you to analyze your negative thoughts and look at them from the side. Putting everything on paper will help to empty your head. Awareness is always the first step, until you’re aware of something how can you even hope to deal with it? Start small You don’t have to be present on all social media platforms altogether. You don’t need to be making videos, stories, writing blog posts, or posts for social media at the same time. In fact, doing all this at the same time is a very bad idea. If you like me had a lot of prejudices and negative thoughts tied to social media like: “it’s not for me, people go there to just show up, it’s stupid, I don’t need that,” you need to start slowly. It’s very easy to get overwhelmed, and anxious, and expect great results too fast. It leads to nowhere, and you will quit very fast. If you don’t feel very comfortable in front of the camera, I will tell you a secrete, nobody is. It’s a skill you learn, practice and improve over time. I avoided showing my face for so long on social media. I resisted and did everything possible to avoid doing that. If you feel the same, start with some photos of yourself, and small captions, and try microblogging on different platforms. With time you can experiment, try filming short videos, short stories, and maybe blogging. It will help you to figure out what platforms you enjoy using, what platform works for you and what type of content you enjoy creating and what brings you more results. Starting small will help you to touch the ground, to see what you enjoy, find your style, and will help to open up in front of your audience more. Be gentle with yourself and practice self-compassion How many times did you try to do something new that you were very passionate about and failed? Were you blaming yourself for that by thinking that you’re not good enough, that it was all your fault, that you should have never started doing that in the first place and that you were naive
How To Cope With The Resistance As A Small Business Owner
How to cope with resistance as a small business owner When I first went on the path of entrepreneurship I had no idea what it meant and what it takes to make everything work. But I decided to take a risk because I simply couldn’t find a sense of doing the same mechanical job over and over again and caring about somebody else’s ambitions and goals. I was looking for more freedom, for no limits on how much money I could make, and finding to do something that I cared about. I had no idea how much I will be obliged to change as a person, and what mindset shifts I will have to make. Learn how to deal with fear, and uncertainty, and still keep going if I wanted to make everything work. I had no idea how much emotional labour was required of me. And that it’s not possible to stay the same old Alina and achieve everything I was dreaming of. That it’s not possible to stay in my comfort zone, to do only the things that are comfortable and move forward. Only by doing uncomfortable things you can evolve and see what you’re capable of. Everybody comes from a different background, but I still believe that wonderful thing can happen to you, if you decide so, take action, learn, and don’t let your lizard brain run your life and settle for being average. I was brought up in a family where everybody all their lives worked for somebody else, and counted on somebody else to give them a job. Where to find a job, you needed to know the right people, please them, obey and shut your mouth. Well, in post-soviet counties finding even this type of job was a miracle. Owning a business, or wanting to build one was never a cultural thing. It was seen as a huge vice. Owning your business meant you would never be able to make enough money. Why do even want to do something like that? It will never work! So yes, I followed a pretty standard path of school, university, and finding a job. Right before I decided to leave Ukraine for France. I guess, that I was curious to see whether it’s the same everywhere. Before I saw Western Europe as some kind of heaven. But it turned out to be exactly the same with the slightest cultural difference and the possibility to consume more low-quality goods. I realized that there are pros and cons in every single country and that it’s time to stop idealizing one country and despise another. Everything is very individual. What pleases you might not please another person. This experience opened my eyes a lot. Because when all your material needs are met is there anything else? And the answer is YES. What is the source of resistance? What is a lizard brain, or a reptile brain? For a very long time, I didn’t know what to call everything I was feeling when I just started my first business. For the first time in my life, I was left alone with nobody telling me what to do, with nobody to discipline me and to push me to do the work. It felt weird. I was overthinking everything, avoiding being me and vulnerable, and searching for perfectionism. I didn’t know what made me different from thousands of people who do the same thing I wanted to do, I concentrated on trivial busywork, doing endless research, and watching endless online tutorials. When the things I needed to do were to reach potential clients, experience failure and rejection, speak with people, create connection and community, provide value, and be myself with my vulnerabilities, imperfections, and fears. And always no matter what finish my work and share it with the world even if it’s row, and it’s imperfect. All actions and inactions mentioned above were caused by one thing – resistance. The point of having an idea is to act on it, to start the project is to finish it. But very often many ideas stay just ideas, and the projects are never finished and stay unseen. But when you act on your ideas and show your project to the world, you will create a collision between your work and the external world. Probably you will experience judgment, pressure, rejection, fear, and failure, but it’s exactly what you need to experience to be able to create extraordinary work. Don’t let resistance prevent you from sharing your work and decide that it’s bad before even sharing. So what is a lizard brain, or a reptile brain? The lizard brain is the most anсient part of our brain that’s responsible for breathing, heart beating, body temperature, and so on. It’s the part of the brain on the back of our head. It’s exactly the part of the brain that helped us to survive and kept us safe for thousands of years. In ancient times it was very vital for our survival. But can we still let our lizard brain decide how we live our lives today? The lizard brain is always scared, horny, and hungry. The lizard brain cares what others think, it wants to be safe. It’s the reason why you’re afraid, the reason why you don’t do everything you’re capable of, and the reason you don’t share your talent and work with the world. The reptile brain is the source of your resistance. How did the lizard brain evolved Even if you think that you’re completely free from your reptile brain it’s so not true. It’s a part of you. And because it’s the most ancient part of the brain, it will always win, it’s not possible to beat it. But you can seduce it and develop new habits that will help you to keep your lizard brain silent. I didn’t realize all these things when I just started working by myself. I couldn’t imagine what types of transformations as a person on a