A Deliberate Creative Didn’t Just Happen

The story goes that some years back I felt my mortality.

I suppose that’s the shortest way to say that I’d been a good mom raising good humans. I was and still am a loving spouse and I was a decent employee. I’d survived shoulder pads, mullets, preppy, disco and mini vans. College drop-offs, parent visit weekends, graduations and new in-laws as the boys married. My parents passed. And then. Boom.

It felt like “my part” was all done.

Yes, there were lots of years in my rearview and I hoped for many years still ahead. You know what though? Those years ahead looked very formless.

So I pondered a bit.

I could keep on doing what I was doing on autopilot.

A personal philosophy of intentional, sustainable, productive living

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 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 decided that I did not want to just react to life as though powerless.

11 ways to build deliberate creativity into your life…

1. A deliberate creative is someone who intentionally uses the imagination to achieve a goal.
2. A deliberate creative broadens thinking to help solve problems.
3. A deliberate creative finds ways to do more with less.
4. 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.)
5. A deliberate creative is someone who takes care to notice that the ordinary can become the muse for the extraordinary.
6. A deliberate creative intentionally looks for wonder in our world and that in itself is a joy-bringer.
7. A deliberate creative is open to learning. I’m open to figuring out how to open my own shop here on my website. It’ll be here at the Into My Window Shop when I get it up and running.
8. A deliberate creative accepts challenges as a way to enhance life and empower themselves.
9. A deliberate creative welcomes new ideas so as to enlarge their protective bubble which serves to foster greater understanding about the world and others. This one really lays on my heart lots, have a look? When Someone is Different Than You
10. A deliberate creative is someone who intentionally uses creativity to influence an outcome.
11. A deliberate creative manipulates material to take on a new form.

Not a one of these definitions is limited to the making art or craft.

What does creativity mean to you personally?

Let me ask, have you ever said “I don’t have a creative bone in my body!” Have you heard others say it?

Think about creativity as the method used to achieve your desired outcome.

Creativity can be the manipulation of material to take on a new form.

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

• Do you want to grow? Create to grow.
• Do you want empowerment? Create to empower.
• Do you want to change? Create to change.
• Do you want to encourage? Create!

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

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

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