Whether you realise it or not, there are many ways you limit how creative you are each and every day, through a variety of ways.
Here are 5 of the most dangerous self-sabotage techniques and how to avoid them:
1. You prioritise everything else over creating. If creative time is down on your To-Do list right after “empty entire contents of kitchen cupboards and clean” and “check that all pictures in the house are still hanging perfectly horizontally”, then be honest, you’re never going to create. Set a regular time and date to create and write it in your diary, on your noticeboard, on the fridge, anywhere you’ll see it and stick to it.
2. You don’t have a dedicated creative space. If you don’t have somewhere you can create relatively undisturbed and have all your materials close to hand, you’ll always find you’re spending more time setting up and getting ready to create than actually creating. Find a creative space and make it yours, even if it’s just a corner of a room.
3. You don’t capture your ideas. If you feel you never have any ideas, then you have nothing to create from, no starting point. Truth is, you have plenty of ideas flowing through your mind, you just don’t record them. Keep an ideas book with you at all times, and jot down each idea as soon as it comes, before you pause to judge it, or you forget it. Soon you’ll have pages of ideas to create from.
4. You don’t recognise your achievements. If you never give yourself credit for what you have created, you’ll never be motivated and inspired to continue creating. A great way of monitoring your progress it to have a chart where you note down each time you make a step forward in creating. Each month, review your chart and you’ll see you’ve done far more than you thought you had.
5. You try to do it all alone. Even if much of your creative work needs to be done alone, you can still share in the lives, struggles and triumphs of other creative people. When you don’t, you feel like you’re living in a bubble, not knowing if anyone knows you create, let alone cares. Reach out and investigate a few creative communities, locally and online. The potential benefits are huge.
Which of these creativity killers do you recognise in your creative life? Choose one, identify some of the steps you can take to overcome it, and take the first one TODAY.