By David Boddy

Believe it or not, it’s easy to be creative. Let go of your ideas of perfection and hear why it pays to let loose with a little creative flair.

You could paint the next Mona Lisa or just have a blast stitching sequins to your underpants… 

I propose that you find your creative flare. No matter how boring, bizarre, or brilliant it may be. It’s all for you! 

Being great at something can come at a higher cost than is often pleasurable. Whether we are any good at the act that is exercising our ‘creative edge’ or is simply letting loose, our simple spontaneity administers the medicine of creativity. Made ever more important in a world that has become vastly automated. 

Making it into an effort

I’ve had a few creative passions over the years, with a rather obsessive nature towards many of them too.
Typically, I’d find an interest, make it a fascination, and once I’d gathered the tools necessary, I’d make it a hobby. I guess this is how most of us turn to new things and as children, we can utilize such enthusiasm in the most effective way. We have a great deal more freedom!

Having time, the space of mind and a strong will to be good at whatever I put my mind to. In the past, the ways in which I have been creatively involved have, until recently, been driven by a certain intensity. 

I remember picking up the guitar. With every challenge to learn a new chord, riff or picking pattern, I’d sit alone on my bed and repeat, repeat, repeat. Repeating until my fingers were too sore to continue. 

Safe to say that I soon got pretty good at playing. I remember being in a local pub, sitting beside my dad as he remarked that “should he go on like this then he’d likely be a great musician by eighteen.” I didn’t go on like that, and whilst I did go on to play in a local pub, to this day I still remain far from a “great musician.” 

That’s a father’s pride for you. In reality, it wore a little thin and I moved on to the next interest. 

Personal insight:

Luckily, despite falling out of many passions, I kept creative. I took to the drums, drawing, photography, carving, skateboarding, snowboarding, gardening, cycling, cooking, and likely other things that have been forgotten. All of which I would fixate upon but eventually, put down.

I never became a pro as I would have liked to believe would happen for most of the things I obsessed over. But I did, as I’ve come to understand, build foundational knowledge and love for many things that I am still involved with today. Not as an expert, nor as a professional, but as a way to simply be creatively involved. No longer infatuated with my capability or progression. 

Fixating, devoting entirely and wanting to do it all well, had distracted me from the essence of what I now see as simple play. 

It’s not about talent, skill, or improving, but simply creating your own fun!

As adults, we’re not so easily and effortlessly guided in the direction of spontaneous and innovative fun. We seem to burden ourselves with results, expectations and near comparisons. 

If there’s anything that I’ve learned from my past ‘obsessions,’ it’s that being great at something can come at a higher cost that is often pleasurable. Shouldn’t we enjoy being creative? 

I propose that you find your creative flare. No matter how boring, bizarre, or brilliant it may be. It’s all for you! 

The power of creativity:

Creativity is a powerful tool. I believe that it is one of, if not the most important tools that need to be put to work in this modern era. Not professionally, perhaps not even passionately, though both of these can help. 

I believe that it pays to be involved in as many creative processes as possible (or enjoyable) for the simple yet complex matter of your own mental wellbeing.

The world is not short of fantastic artworks, songs, crafts, and talents. But I’m not recommending you be creative so that we can add to the pile. Instead, see it as medicine. Do it for yourself! Do it for your soul! 

I could reference some fancy, groundbreaking study that relates creativity to happiness, productivity and a growing brain… who doesn’t want that right? Trust me — such research exists. But you can test for yourself. 

I find that science can become distracting…
You may not make money. You may not make a masterpiece, or even something worth hanging on the wall. And, you likely won't make fame, but as long as you take time, the time to create, then you will undoubtedly fulfill many, if not all, of the benefits on this list:
Simple side effects of being creative:

• Make room! - Clear your head of the same old, same old and make room for new ideas and inspiration to come creeping in. 

• Spend time away from your phone - The internet and other drains upon your time, can leave you otherwise depleted. 

• Hang out in your own head - Creativity comes from within! You might find that you’ve got a lot in there that you never knew of… 

• Use increasingly unused areas of the brain - Passing time over to other forms of ‘entertainment’ can see part of our brain (linked to creativity) going completely unused. Rescue that part of your poor brain! 

• Practice your motor skills - An important relationship between body and mind that will fade if neglected. How delicate is your hand? 

• Make produce or product - No matter how skilled you are, being creative is bound to leave you with some end product… Maybe even a gift for someone special? 

• Support small scale manufacture and re-using - Whether it’s recycling materials or making instead of buying, you are likely to be removing the demand for mass-manufactured goods.

• You’ll get better! - It's inevitable! The more time you spend doing - the better you’ll be!

• Make memories - Taking your mind away from the usual, you’ll add variety into your life - this is sure to help times stay in mind.

• Learning - Whether you’re making mistakes or asking a pro, you’ll be learning!

• Become relatable - You can’t hope to make conversation if you don’t do something. You might even want to join a club?

• Work on yourself - You’ve only got one life (as far as we’re aware), why not add to your list of experience(s)?

• Make time - So you’re a busy one ‘ey? Well, when there’s something in it for you, you’ll make the time! 

• Escape your drama - Sometimes we just need to get away. When you can’t do that physically, at least you can distract yourself with some glitter!

• Become more patient - Learning, failing, re-starting - being creative does wonders for your patience — a valuable attribute to anyone. 

Finding it hard?

The issue, I find, with being creatively involved is finding the time and the frame of mind to get stuck in. If we’re not thinking creatively then how can we be creative?

This is why we are blessed in the modern age to have excellent access to all manners of tools, equipment and inspiration to take to an infinite array of activities that are creatively engaging!
Also, of course, there are those activities that come for free (or near to) like writing, singing, cooking (as you are certain to eat anyway), and sculpting (naturally occurring goods). So surround yourself with creative ‘matter’ (tools, instruments, materials and resources that you can use to be creative) and greater are the chances that you’ll feel like picking up at least one of them. 

It’s not about being any good...

You don't have to be any good. This is worth remembering. 

The need to strive for excellence is a hugely off-putting factor for many - as it is for myself. Just let yourself know that creative time is for you and you only. Time spent using your craft is worth so much more than the craft itself could hope to offer in return. Unless you’re a Picasso of course, in which case, why are you reading an article about creativity?

There will always be the pros, the experts, and the perfectionists that are producing better work than you, but they cannot offer yourself anything other than the final product, and even that will come at a costly price! 

My new creative project:

Having received a beautiful new carving set, I have four new tools to play with and I’m loving spending time on a night gouging into my ‘practice stick’ to create new shapes, shades, and layers of spontaneously inspired carvings.

Spontaneity is the medicine of creativity. Perhaps it’s the medicine that such an automated world needs.

David is a lifestyle writer for La Tonique.