Imagine yourself as a deliberate creative. Maybe I can help.

You have two beautiful baskets, or maybe big wooden bowls. One is full of deliberate creativity. The other is full of joyful mindful intentional living. Slowly pour one into the other. The blend is the richness and tenfold joy of living a deliberately creative life.

So let’s think about what creativity means to us personally. Have you ever said “I don’t have a creative bone in my body!” Have you heard others say it?

Guess what. Creativity is not always the act of being artistic or crafty.

Creativity is really just the method used to achieve your desired outcome.

It’s the manipulation of material to take on a new form.

It could be that creativity is simply changing this to that!

A personal philosophy of intentional, sustainable, productive living

Some years ago… I was closing in on age 50, I decided that I did not want to just react to life as though powerless. I fashioned a personal philosophy of intentional, sustainable and productive living. 

I strove to intentionally make the most of life’s planned and unplanned challenges, best as possible in that moment in that day, hour or minute. 

I began to think about what might happen if I became more deliberate about my creativity. What would happen if I slowed down so as to allow the wonder of life linger. Soon I realized that creativity invited into in my thinking and its outright expression at home, in health and in the broader context of life that I call in heart, was needed to have the most extraordinary ordinary life.

I jotted down a few ideas.

a deliberate creative is….

A deliberate creative is someone who intentionally uses the imagination to achieve a goal. 

A deliberate creative broadens thinking to help solve problems or change or even create outcomes.

A deliberate creative finds ways to do more with less.

A deliberate creative considers unplanned change to be opportunity for growth.  (Ooooooo the “change” word. A tough one. Yes, we can be open to change, deliberately and creatively, if we choose to be.)

A deliberate creative is someone who takes care to notice that the ordinary can become the muse for the extraordinary.

A deliberate creative intentionally looks for wonder in our world and that in itself is a joy-bringer.

A deliberate creative is open to learning and accepts a challenge as a way to enhance life.

A deliberate creative allows new ideas to enlarge their bubble which serves to foster greater understanding about the world and others.

a deliberate creative is someone who intentionally uses the imagination to direct an outcome

But I can’t even draw a straight line you say?

An example …..  My grandma used to say she couldn’t even draw a straight line (neither can I). It was her way of saying that she wasn’t creative, or artistic, or couldn’t draw (a straight line). 

I doubt that she considered herself to be a creative woman but I believe she was. Grandma was born in 1900 and was one of the first women in her part of rural Ohio to buy and drive a Model T Ford. She earned her college tuition by cleaning houses. 

Grandma was a good cook and set a pretty table using the family linens and her mother’s fancy dishes. She collected pressed glass and depression glass and arranged it just “so” in her china cabinets. Her house was arranged with a flair for beauty and she loved to garden. She and I would go to auction sales and she taught me to look for what was “good” or not. 

My grandparents came from humble beginnings and left this world having led simple lives. But you know, my mother-in-law always said that money can buy the package yet a creative eye will find the treasures and pull them together creatively — and uniquely!

So, Where’s Life Have You at Present?

You may be like me if you are close to retirement or post career. You’ve given your heart and life to a career or raising kids or both. You’ve provided for the family and sent them out into the world. I know you. Me too.

I may not do the 8 to 5 any longer but my days are far from empty.  The intention and practice of a deliberately creative life at home, in heart, and health fill and fuel my days and nights.

Make moments matter. Deliberately.

When I creatively make my way through life’s changes I empower myself to grow in ways that surprise me still. And, yes, at my age!

The most regretful people on earth are those who felt the call to creative work, who felt their own creative power, restive and uprising and gave to it neither power nor time.  — Mary Oliver

Read up for lots of tips and encouragement

in my home,
in my heart-felt attitude,
while striving towards better health,

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