Your creative invitation
This morning, I want to formally dub you with a new title. This is an initiation, an inauguration, an invitation. It doesn't come with a raise or new responsibilities, but it might change your life.
I want you to take it very seriously.
Okay, ready for it?
On this day, I dub thee…a creative.
Yes, I said it. You are A CREATIVE.
Okay, I sensed a little bit of resistance when I just said that.
Is your brain coming up with all the reasons you couldn't possibly be a creative?
Maybe you're a manager at a Fortune 500 company, or a bartender, or a stay-at-home mom who is in the trenches of baby poop. Maybe you're a dog walker, or starting a business, or living in your parent's basement. Maybe you're retired or unemployed, and you have no heckin' clue what is happening today or tomorrow or the next day. Maybe things just suck right now.
How does any of that fall within the bounds of the word "creative"?
Our standards are unusually high for the word "creative". We tend to reserve it for people who regularly produce culturally recognized pieces of artwork--a painting, a book, a line of poetry, a new song. We believe that, in order to be a creative, you must do it in a professional context, and you must dedicate your life to art.
If you're not wearing a canvas apron covered in multi-colored paint splotches, then you must not a creative.
If other people haven’t bought, consumed, or validated the thing you made, then you must not be a creative.
FUCK THAT.
I am on a quest for all of us to claim the word creative.
We all create new things every single day. We have interesting interactions and conversations. We experiment with different ingredients. We travel to new places. We give birth to BABY HUMANS. Our minds wander. We pivot towards new opportunities. We imagine something different, and then we create it.
We are constantly creating tiny shifts in the human experience.
Being a creative means committing yourself to the practice of creation. It’s following your curiosity. It’s listening to the voice that tells you to take a different path. Its engaging with your perspective and genius, imagining something new, and then sharing it with the world in your own unique way.
It’s accepting the invitation to flirt with the divine.
It’s an offering to the world. A devotion to something bigger than yourself.
Every moment is an opportunity to choose a new way. To put something out into the world that didn't exist before.
Taking a different route on your morning walk is a creative act.
Being a dad and doing things *a little bit differently* than your parents did is a creative act.
Writing in your journal is a creative act.
Sitting at the bar exchanging ideas with a stranger is a creative act.
Launching a new program at work, creating a yoga flow, and inventing a never-consumed-before cocktail are all creative acts.
Grieving the end of a relationship is a creative act.
If you are doing something differently than it was done before, then you are creating. You are offering something to the universe that wasn’t here prior to your arrival. And in my book, that makes you a creative.
A big part of claiming the word "creative" is trusting that how you see the world is absolutely and utterly unique. It’s understanding that your perspective and experiences have never existed before, and they will never exist again…for all of time. So it is your job, your duty, and your right to send it off into the world.
Remember this. You don’t need to create a critically acclaimed masterpiece or go to art school to be a creative. You just need be in process with the momentary act of creation, and then offer it up with intention.
Offer it to yourself, to your kids, to your friends, to strangers on the internet, to a higher being, to anyone and everyone who might benefit from a different way of thinking and doing.
We can't predict the domino effect of our creative offering. We don't know where it will lead us, or the shift it might produce. We just have to follow it.
When we start seeing our lives and businesses as creative canvases, we gain access to a more purposeful and expansive existence, where every little thing we do contributes to the greater whole. It’s a tiny shift in thinking, but it has profound implications on how we move through the world.
There is a unique genius that lives within you.
There is a creative intelligence that wants to come through.
Approach it with curiosity. Give it away with generosity. And don't expect anything in return.
You are already living creatively.
Yes, you are a most definitely a creative. Go forth, and start owning it.
Nicole is coach, business mentor, and entrepreneur living in the Pacific Northwest. She specializes in life coaching and business mentoring for individuals, entrepreneurs, and creatives.
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