Did you know you can train yourself to be creative?

Creativity is not reserved for musicians, painters, writers and dancers, being creative is a way of living, it’s about success in any aspect of your life!

“Creativity is a fundamental human skill, it is something we all need and it is a key to success” 

Creativity is simply taking separate concepts and putting them together making them appear as new. 

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There are many ways to train yourself to be creative and we will uncover many that I have found useful starting today with the book Steal Like an Artist by Austin Kleon.

The first and most valuable concept I took from this book is that nothing is original!!!! 

As a writer I found myself thinking and thinking, trying to come up with something that had never been done before only to find myself referring in my mind to books that I had ready and loved. When I began to think of an idea to write I always thought it might be too similar to a book that maybe I had read five years ago…. Well of course!!!! 

After reading this book it took the pressure off from writing something completely new, because guess what? NOTHING IS ORIGINAL! We receive inspiration from other artists from things we see, hear, read, etc and instead of running from it embrace the influence and then put your own twist to it. Blend your ideas together, and that’s when magic and originality is created.

Second concept I took from this book was START BEFORE YOU ARE READY just like the quote states “ You don’t have to be great to get started, but you have to get started to be great.” So true, if we relax a little and produce our creative project without fear of it having to be perfect then we will enjoy the process and learn more and more each time therefore getting better at it. 

And finally, the third concept that I took from this book is THE LIFESPAN OF A PROJECT… Ooooh it dips low…. When we start any creative project we are highly enthusiastic, right? But shortly after it follows with us thinking “hmmm this is harder than I thought”... followed by “this is so much work!” But wait it gets even worse…. It dips even lower to “this is the worst idea ever!” And right there my friends is when you need to separate yourself from the rest. That’s when you don’t give up and push through those hard doubtful moments until you have a finished piece of art (a dish, a design, a book etc etc) 🙂

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I hope these concepts from the book Steal Like an Artist  help you in your creative journey!