In last week’s post, The Two Biggest Myths of Creativity I tried to dispel the major myths that I believe are used as “crutches” and stop many people from even attempting creative endeavours. We learnt that creativity is not solely for artists but everyone, and that it doesn’t come naturally and must be worked at; but also fostered through other creative outlets.
Perfect! So we know we can be creative, it won’t come completely naturally, and works best with multiple outlets. I want to start being more creative but that doesn’t really tell me where to begin. Help?! I think the best way to tackle it is in three parts, so we will continue our examination by looking at the importance of having multiple creative outlets.
By now you all know I am a big supporter of having multiple outlets for our creativity. In fact earlier this year I challenged each of you to come up with a new hobby to try out this year. I feel that each of our creative endeavours actually work together helping inspire each other, so that our overall creativity actually grows. I don’t think just having the same couple outlets is enough though; we should also be trying new things.
But why is trying new things so important you may ask? Well first off, it actually strengthens our brain but we won’t get into that in this post. I think the true reason of why it is so important is it pushes us outside our comfort zone. By operating outside our comfort zone we are forced to grow as individuals. To achieve this individual growth it requires courage and self confidence. These are two of the most important character traits for the creative mind to be successful.
Why you may ask? Charles Brower said, “A new idea is delicate. It can be killed by a sneer or a yawn; it can be stabbed to death by a quip and worried to death by a frown on the right man’s brow.” Without self confidence and courage, our new ideas can easily be stifled by others. So by trying out new things, we help develop ourselves individually so when we do have a great idea, we have to strength to see it through.
This week we have covered a lot when it comes to creativity. We learnt that passion is what ultimately feeds our creativity but that we have to LPPR (Learn Practice Practice Repeat) for our talents to grow. Although these are both essential for growing our creative minds, they can be dangerous for our creativity as well. Our creative endeavours that we are most passionate about can be thought of like walking on a dangerous tightrope. How can this can you may ask? When we are very passionate about something we often focus all our attention on that one thing. This singular focus can cause creative burnout.
Lately I have been very bad for having this singular focus. A couple weeks ago I spent all my time working on this blog. I was proof reading some older posts and writing new ones at the same time. This singular focus started me down the path of burnout, and I almost paid for it dearly. Thankfully I finished just before the burn out occurred, and was able to re-focus my energies on other passions and creative endeavours.
This is why I believe multiple outlets are so important, not only do they build our character, but they provide creative “breaks” from our various passions so we don’t burnout our biggest passions.
What do you think, are multiple outlets really that important to maintaining our creativity? How is my challenge of starting a new hobby this year going? Has anyone started one yet?
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