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

Creativity is not always the act of being artistic or crafty

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

• 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!

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

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

This is the last remaining piece of a wedding gift salad set from 1952 (my mother’s). Made of glass and shaped like an apple, it’s really nice empty. Look how it changes the whole vibe when it’s filled with the goodness that’ll soon be guacamole. Yep, just changed 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 jotted down a few ideas that have become instrumental to my journey of deliberate creativity. I’ll share them with you.

What’s a deliberate creative? Here are 10 ideas:

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 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.

How we limit ourselves

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. A helpful axiom remember is that money can buy the package yet a creative eye will find the treasures and pull them together creatively — and uniquely!

[click_to_tweet tweet=”Join Karen Moody founder of Into My Window and #adeliberatecreative in living slowly, wondrously and creatively in thought and its outright expression at home, in heart and in health. ” quote=”Join Karen Moody founder of Into My Window and #adeliberatecreative in living slowly, wondrously and creatively in thought and its outright expression at home, in heart and in health. “]

Ponder a little about your own path of deliberate creativity.

I pondered a bit.

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.

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

You may find some encouraging tips within these links organized by category:

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

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