Creativity's Workshop

Taming and Training Your Creativity to Write Abundantly

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Tips for Using Your Holiday to Replenish Your Creativity – Tips 1 and 2

A person relaxing on a couch in pyjamas and green stripy socks

Image Credit: Microsoft Clip Art

Hi there! I’m Jessica’s Creativity and I’m here to talk to you about using your time off to benefit your Creativity!

Ooooh. I just got white page fright.

Have you noticed how you can get the best ideas in the shower and then by the time you dry yourself off, get dressed and finally make it to the computer the words have disappeared? Gone off for a party somewhere else in your noggin I suspect. 

Now…how to conjure them back?….Try and remember the subject. 

Ah! Yes. We’re talking about how to use your holidays wisely – and these tips apply to any holidays (vacation trips to favourite destinations, seasonal holidays and enforced holidays for flu etc.). 

First Tip: Step Back From Your Work

You know the ol’ cliché: A watched pot never boils? Well the principle works for Creativities too. We usually clam up when directly watched. 

Sure, we may have started out with a great idea and helped you along with gusto in the initial stages, but as the sponge began to dry out and our eyeballs began to glaze we lost the impetus to make any useful contributions.

Therefore, a holiday is the perfect time to deliberately step away from what you’re working on. Give yourself and your Creativity time to recuperate. 

I know you don’t want to lose momentum, but I’ll let you in on a little secret. We Creativities usually come up with our best ideas when you aren’t looking, when you’re off doing something relaxing. 

So, there you go. Relaxing is good for you!

While you’re relaxing, keep the next tip in mind.

Second Tip: Spend Time With People

The beauty of time off from work means you can spend time with the important people in your life. Don’t shirk this or become miserly with how you spend your time. These people are your inspiration and support. 

Do things together with them. Listen to their thoughts. Enjoy their company.

If you don’t live near your family, even a phone call or e-mail can give you that special feeling of connection.

If you’re traveling, take the time to meet up with friends and make new friends along the way.

Does this help your Creativity? Yes!

A smile, hug, laugh, simple word from a loved one makes you feel happy. That happiness nurtures your Creativity like sunshine to a flower. 

Okay, maybe that all sounds a bit soppy, so let’s just say spending time with loved ones helps you relax, and relaxing provides your Creativity with a better environment for recovering from the intensive staring matches you’ve been inflicting on him/her. 

So go relax! Now! That’s an order!

And come back on Wednesday. I have more tips!

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Guest Post – The Invisible Promise of Your Creativity

A girl holding up ballet shoes.

image: lauren.rushing

Today’s guest post is by Dan Goodwin of A Big Creative Yes. Dan is a creativity coach and we’re very glad to have him here as our first guest blogger! (If you would like to submit a guest post for Creativity’s Workshop, read the guidelines here.) The links within today’s post will take you to other great posts at A Big Creative Yes.

Do you ever feel let down by your creativity?

Do you ever feel like you’re turning up to create with great expectations, only to be disappointed and disheartened by the lack of creativity that shows up for you in return?

You soon start to wonder where your creativity has disappeared to. And maybe whether you’ll ever see it again.

If this kind of pattern has been happening to you, maybe you’re not aware of the invisible promise of your creativity.

When you were first introduced, all those years ago, your creativity made a deal with you. At the core of this deal was an unfaltering, invincible, invisible promise.

Your creativity promised you that if you showed up to create with all the energy and focus and enthusiasm you could muster, it would always be there too – on the same street corner in the same town, in the same depths of the same forest, at the same bend in the same river.

All you needed to do was show up with the best you had. The rest you’d do together.

When you made the deal, you made it for life.

The problem is, later on, that life got in the way, and confused and obscured the relationship your and your creativity have, and the bond you formed.

And because the invisible promise was not written down, countersigned and archived, you forgot not only what it contained, but that it was ever made at all.

Which brings us back to the place we began with – you showing up to create and feeling let down because your creativity, your muse, your inspiration – whatever you wish to call it – isn’t keeping its end of the deal and showing up too.

This is because you’ve forgotten one essential part of the promise.

I forget it too sometimes, we all forget sometimes. The crucial part is this:

Your creativity promised it would show up with you, but it needs you to actually do that too.

To show up.

Not just physically, but in your mind, in your focus, in your energy, in your heart.

And it needs you to do this often.

Not once a month. Not a handful of times a year. Not on the occasional Tuesday evening, precisely one week after the last episode of a 24 part season of the show you watch and wonder why has ended and you don’t know how to fill the gap.

Your creativity promised to show up every day, if you showed up every day. It promised to give you all it had, if you give it all you have.

Like some vast, powerful amplifier, or a fairytale magic mirror, what you come to the page, the stage or the canvas with, your creativity gives right back. Plus a whole lot more.

This doesn’t mean that if you show up every day to create that you’ll create a masterpiece every time.

But you’ll never create a masterpiece, a minorpiece or a tiny little baby mouthful sized piece of you don’t come to the ball at all.

From that consistency of creating each day, you’ll gain an incredible momentum. You’ll begin to feel creatively invincible.

You’ll also make plenty of the kind of mistakes that open exciting new pathways that you otherwise never would have discovered.

And, probably most importantly of all, when you show up to create every day, the idea of being creatively blocked for days, weeks, months, even years on end, will simply not exist.

If you need evidence that your creativity is alive and well, and just waiting for you to remember its invisible promise and start creating again, try this:

You’re thinking you’re not creative anymore, right? That’s it’s dried up and disappeared and you’ll never create like you used to?

Which obviously means you can’t imagine in your mind that little girl. Yes, that one. You can’t picture the colour of her eyes, the shade of her hair, the clothes she’s wearing, those unmistakable little shoes, and that smile on her face.

You can’t see the way she skips along with that flower clip in her hair, and her bag across one shoulder. And you can’t possibly imagine where she might be off to.

Oh, but you just did.

You just saw her, in vivid detail.

And now you’re thinking about where she’s heading to. And the story, the one that wasn’t visible a few moments ago, is gently unfolding in your imagination.

It doesn’t matter who the girl is, or what she looks like. She appeared because for that point in time you showed up ready to create.

Your creativity kept its invisible promise and showed up with you, then together the images tumbled into your mind.

Keep your side of the promise too. Often.

Show up, every day, in that town on that street corner, in the depths of that forest, at that bend in that river.

Arrive will all you have, each day, every day, and be gloriously reunited with the creativity you thought you’d lost.

Will you promise?

Dan GoodwinCreativity Coach Dan Goodwin helps people become as creative as they’ve always known they can be. He works with artists to help them remember that creating is as essential to their lives and happiness as breathing, eating, and sleeping. Dan writes regularly on his blog A Big Creative Yes.


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Contemplating Insanity? Tips 1 and 2. Get Yourself Some Comfort Food and Sunshine

A freshly cooked pie sitting on the window sill

The following post is an excerpt from the e-book entitled Tips for Those Contemplating Insanity. Please feel free to leave your thoughts and suggestions!

Food

It’s amazing how much rosier a day looks after a good meal. Food provides comfort, nourishment and sugar!

Here’s a quick checklist:

  • Make sure you’re eating well – Eat nutritious meals at regular times. (I’ve had whole days go wrong just because I messed up breakfast.)
  • Spoil yourself from time to time – Give yourself a treat (not enough to alarm the conscience, just enough to remind you of the joys of food).
  • Try some good ol’ home cooking – Cooking can be therapeutic. Clear the kitchen counter, pull out your favourite recipe and get creative!
  • Take comfort from your food – Choose dishes that will give relief from your current environment. If the weather’s hot, try a long, cool glass of lemonade and a scoop of sorbet. If the weather’s cold, try a nice warm mug of hot chocolate and a dollop of pudding.
  • Savour – Whenever possible, sit down and just concentrate on eating. Avoid rushing and stressing during your meal. Enjoy the colours, flavours and smells.
 A Tip to Remember

Sometimes food can influence us for the worse. If your times of insanity follow certain meals, try varying dishes and ingredients to see if there’s any difference.

Sunshine

The outdoors (on a good day) also does wonders for your frame of mind. Fresh air is good for the lungs, vitamin D is good for the body and sunlight improves mood.

So if you spot some sunshine, get out and lap it up. Better still, take your snack and drink outside. (Just be careful of UV rays. Perhaps best to try this before 10 am and after 4 pm or sit in the shade.)


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Great Ideas Just Cl!ck

Due to work deadlines, I don’t have a post for you today. So I want to introduce you to a fantastic short film instead.

If you can’t see the video, click here to watch it on YouTube.

I love this film because it illustrates a basic creative truth. Great ideas only come after someone has put all the other bricks into the lightbulb. You have to work hard (and fail!) first, then the ‘ah ha’ moment comes.

I’ve recently read the first chapter of Scott Berkun’s book The Myths of Innovation in which he likens the eureka moments to putting together a jigsaw puzzle. The last piece yields the exhilaration of finally solving the problem, but it’s due to the time you spent putting together all the other pieces. The only thing which made that piece special was that it happened to be the last one to fall into place. If you did the puzzle all over again, then it could be a different piece which was the last to slot into place. Therefore the last ‘click’, while thrilling and life changing, can only happen when you’ve put all the effort in beforehand.

So the question is, how far along is your lightbulb/jigsaw puzzle?  If you’re not at ‘ah ha’ point yet, keep adding pieces. Sooner or later you’ll get there.

Do you have any comments about this short film? I’d love to hear them. 🙂


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Teaching Your Creativity to Eat Vegetables

Happy girl eating salad and tomato soup.

See? Eating vegetables can be fun!

Last week Creativity wrote a post about riding your creative wave, in which she mentioned our experience writing a particularly challenging blog post. She pointed out that if your Creativity is finding your current project boring, you should move to a project he or she is more interested in.

While I realise there is a lot of merit in this (and I have seen the benefit countless times) I do feel I should expand upon the subject further. We cannot always drop a project just because our Creativity refuses to play ball, or wants to play backgammon instead.

Tiv likened the situation to getting a child to eat vegetables. The analogy is apt because, although we all love to eat sweets, we cannot live a life without vegetables, however enticing that prospect is to a five-year-old. There are times when you just have to sit your Creativity down and make him or her eat the vegetables, just to prove that icky greens aren’t so bad after all.

How? Here are some of my tips. (You may notice the points suggested work equally well on children. Need I say more?)

  • Don’t be afraid of inactivity. I think it’s worth saying first off that if your Creativity doesn’t begin spouting ideas as soon as you sit down, don’t be too perturbed. Often your head, and your Creativity’s surroundings, needs to be completely blank before the idea hits, almost like the calm before the storm or the blank canvas before the painting. The poet William Stafford likens this moment to fishing. Your Creativity may not necessarily be turning up her nose at the greens, but simply examining them for caterpillars before she begins munching.
  • Set a timer. If your Creativity really is sticking her tongue out at you every time you try to get serious work done, then this may just be a matter of habit forming. Your Creativity might not like being tied down the same project over and over, but if you make it apparent that you’re going to sit there and stare at that project for a set amount of time every day, eventually he or she may take the course of least resistance and join in.
  • Have a reward system. I know we say this often, but it’s a truism; sometimes the best way to get work out of someone (especially a reluctant someone) is to provide an irresistible reward at the end. It can be anything from chocolate to spending time on a different fun project. Check with your Creativity what would work best for them, and then carry through on your promise.
  • Mix it up a little. As Tiv mentioned in her post, by making your vegetables more interesting, or by changing the way you present them, the greens become more appealing and exciting. So why not change something about your environment? Go to a cafe, or sit in a park. Or perhaps change your expectations. Maybe you need to inject a little more fun into the project to bring Creativity’s attention back. Does your project need some visuals to stir the ideas? Perhaps write in a different voice, change the setting of a scene, dream up a new character, add something unexpected. What can you change to make it fresh again?

I add as a reluctant addendum that there are times when you should allow nature to take its course, realize your child may have a lifelong hate of cauliflower and leave it at that. The same is true on a creative front. As much as I hate to admit it, I’m sure Creativity would agree with me when I say that some ideas, projects and posts should be left to fade away. If the spark is gone and shows no sign of returning, then let the thing die a dignified death. Nothing is ever a total waste. Often what you were working on helped you to find your way to the next idea or at least define what you are not looking for.

But don’t give up on your projects right away, even if your Creativity is uncooperative. It’s possible that with a little change to your routine, you can bring him or her back into line and have them chompin’ their veggies with vigour.

Have you come across this problem with your Creativity? What solutions do you find helpful?


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Are Your Eyes Eating Right?

Dog licks chops and looks longingly at dinnerHave you ever wondered what your Creativity eats? I’ll let you in on the secret.

He/she feeds off your experiences; off the things you interact with or notice as you go about your daily life. And the main source of that food is visual. Yes, your eyes feed your Creativity.

So what interesting morsels are you supplying your Creativity? Are you feeding him/her at all?

Some people are so busy they never let their eyes rest on anything worth ingesting, at least from their Creativity’s point of view. But with a little understanding of your Creativity’s eating habits, you can keep him/her happy and healthy.

Start Eating Right

The first step is to realise your Creativity is relying on you to satisfy his/her needs. So what are you providing?

Are you paying attention to your surroundings? Do you actually take in the sights and people you encounter, or are you so wrapped up in getting from point A to point B as quickly and efficiently as possible that you don’t notice anything else?

You don’t have to go out of your way to find ‘food’ of interest. Look at the passengers you share a bus with. Watch people who walk by. Notice the plants. Read posters. Stare at clouds. Eavesdrop on a nearby conversation. Examine your environment to see what whets your Creativity’s appetite.

How will you know when you’ve hit on something your Creativity wants a bite of? You’ll begin to feel intrigued, curious, excited. You may even have a light bulb moment when the spark of an idea forms. Then you know you’re on the right track.

Provide a Varied Diet

If you just eat the same meal over and over again, life starts to get dull and tasteless, even if the meal used to be your favourite. It’s the same with your Creativity. Once he/she has squeezed all the excitement out of the places you frequent, you need ensure you’re keeping the meals interesting.

Try taking a different route to work, talking to someone you’ve never spoken to before, reading a different book, walking into a strange shop, learning a new subject, travelling to a faraway place, tasting an unexpected dish.

Vary the place, time and mood. Even slight differences can change the whole texture of an experience.

Savour the Flavour

When someone presents you with a beautiful meal, you chew slowly and savour the tastes. When your Creativity is ‘eating,’ the speed with which he/she ‘chews’ is directly proportional to how much attention you invest. If your eyes flit from one thing to the next, your Creativity misses the depth of the experience and ends up with creative gas – and you do not want me to start describing that to you.

So, give your Creativity time to take in the details. Let your eyes, and attention, dwell on each individual experience. Don’t rush. Chewing your food takes time.

Thankfully, China is a country where staring is considered the norm so Jessica uses this cultural quirk to the full. But if you’re in a culture which views staring as impolite, what can you do? Start by practicing your ability to capture detail. You can tell a lot just by a glance. The more you practice this skill, the better you will become. You can then recreate the scene, person and/or object in your Imagination. From there you and your Creativity can stare at it as much as you like.

To keep your Creativity happy and healthy, you need to be feeding him/her a varied and regular diet of interesting experiences. What is your Creativity’s favourite food?

(Mine, in case you were wondering, is subway train rides. The amount of people and conversations crammed into each car is a veritable smorgasbord of new sensations!)

Image credit: freerangestock.com by Chance Agrella.


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The Road Less Clichéd

At the time of writing this we are on Gulang Yu, a gorgeous little island off the coast of Xiamen in Fujian, China. It’s positively dripping with history and character. The buildings range from Western style to Chinese style and many areas combine the two. We are all becoming very attached to it.

Because it’s a tourist attraction, the locals are used to tourists wandering down back streets and exploring. The picture above was taken by Jessica during one of these explorations. Pretty, ain’t it?

Now Jessica would have told you she was ‘lost,’ but I much prefer to say she was ‘discovering.’

You see, some travellers only ever stay on the big roads, the ones one the map. But those roads are crowded, noisy and they’ve been photographed from every angle. The more interesting places are tucked away – down back alleys and over hills, through the high grass or under trees. Finding one of those places not only gives you a unique experience, but also provides you with the sweet and addictive taste of discovery.

You may have experienced this sensation when travelling, but did you realise you can get the same sweet taste when using your creativeness? Yup, your own noggin can supply your daily dose of discovery.

The Pathways of Your Mind

Have you ever seen a picture of synapses in the brain? They’re like pathways through your mind – and I walk those pathways every day. Like the roads you travel to work or school or the store, some pathways are bigger and quicker than others.

The pathways you use every day, like repetitive tasks and favourite thought patterns, are very wide and fast – so fast you may not even realise you’re using them. Pathways used less often (conversations with friends for example) are slower and sometimes a little harder to find. Then there are the exciting pathways that have never been travelled.

These pathways are more hypothetical. They haven’t been made yet. Like exploring in the jungle, you have to forge your way through, machete and mosquito repellant at the ready. These are the ones where discoveries are made!

Cutting a New Path

Ideas come when you glimpse an unexplored side street within your brain, or push your way into the undergrowth of information to find a new path. Ideas are almost never found in the middle of the big roads you travel all the time. Why? Because you found them long ago. Like dropped chewing gum, they’ve been trampled into the street until they’re no longer sticky. To find new ideas you need to explore.

How? I’m glad you asked.

You need to view each thought as a journey, as a trip down a road. Instead of racing from one thought to the next, slow down and look carefully at where you are going – see the subtleties and unexplored possibilities. Take special note of where thoughts intersect, like junctions connecting perpendicular roads. Are there aspects to these meeting points you haven’t investigated yet?

As you explore new or seldom travelled roads, keep the following points in mind.

Firstly, be ready to detour. Some days you’re in such a hurry to get somewhere that there’s no time to explore. This is not the time to begin cutting a new road. You’re likely to hack right through your precious new discovery in your haste to get to the other side. It’s okay to be in a hurry sometimes, just realise that’s not the time for exploration. Don’t ruin a perfectly good adventure by always checking your watch.

Exploration happens best when there’s time to look around, when you’re not going to become frustrated at getting lost. Like Jessica’s detour the other day, although she was lost, knowing it was okay to take her time meant the experience was very enjoyable, if disorientating.

Second, be prepared to discover anything new, no matter how strange. Sometimes we don’t realise we’ve made a discovery because it isn’t what we were expecting. For example, the first synthetic mauve dye was discovered in 1856 by William Henry Perkin while he was attempting to synthesize quinine (medicine used for treating malaria). Imagine what would have happened if Will had squinted at the purple gloop in his beaker, decided it looked nothing like quinine and dumped it? As it happened, his interest in painting and photography meant he became very excited by his discovery, resulting in the very first synthetic dye. He filed for the patent that very year. Cool, eh?

So when you’re looking for discoveries, pay attention to the unexpected. Cultivate an interest in everything. Examine different things, even those that may not immediately capture your interest. This takes time, but that’s why being ready to detour is so important.

Third, know when to turn back. Every now and then you’ll come across a road which is dangerous or doesn’t actually lead anywhere. Some of these roads you may not want to explore, or you may only want to explore part of them. Decide on a time limit, or warning signs which will tell you when to turn back. Remember, although discovery takes work, it should be something fun or intriguing. If it becomes boring, dangerous or too laborious, perhaps it’s time to come home for teacake and lychees.

With these three points in mind, why not try a side road excursion with your Creativity? We Creativities are wonderful travelling companions when it comes to discovering new pathways through your mind. Don’t be surprised if your Creativity grabs you by the hand and pulls you head first into a detour of intense and epic proportions. Take a deep breath, whoop at the top of your voice and keep your eyes wide open. This is what being creative is all about.

Have you discovered any new sideroads recently?


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When Procrastination Isn’t Procrastination

I’ve recently been reading this article.

The article made me feel so much better about myself and my methods. I do feel I incubate my ideas. I’m conscious of them brewing in the back of my mind, percolating into something I will eventually put on to paper or into practice.

This harks back to a previous post about the Creativity Sponge. Time is an important part of the creative process, most times a necessary part. While we want our families and workmates to appreciate our need for incubation time, we also need to respect our own need for that time. This means knowing when not to force something, when to go for a walk, when to leave the idea for a week, a month, until another idea collides with it to take the idea from ordinary to inspirational.

Thoughtful Creativeness

I think the term that best describes this is ‘Thoughtful Creativeness’ – that which comes from time and consideration before anything tangible appears on paper.

We often equate Creativity with spontaneity – loud, unpredictable, surprising etc. But how much of this perception is actually the flurry of activity after a lengthy incubation process?

There will always be those moments of instant inspiration, witty responses right on cue and random ramblings of genius that you cannot prepare for. They just pop out. That’s the creative expression we expect, and is the hardest part of Creativity to predict and quantify. But, Thoughtful Creativeness is something better, more special and, if mastered, far more useful.

How often do we hear a person who has written a book, made a movie or written a song say something along the lines of, “The idea began several years ago when some-unusual-event-or-fact intrigued me. It took me several years before I really knew how I wanted to portray it.” That’s incubation.

How You Can Practice Thoughtful Creativeness

You’ve probably already experienced Thoughtful Creativeness. For example, have you ever been working on a project and suddenly have a brilliant idea for a final touch? The idea seems to just ‘come to you’ or ‘pop into your head.’ But really, could you have come up with that idea if you had not put in the effort and preparation which got you to that point? All the thought that came before incubated and nurtured the ‘flash’ of inspiration.

The biggest part of Thoughtful Creativeness is relaxing to the point where you trust both your Creativity and yourself. When you feel that little bud of inspiration forming in your mind, don’t feel like you have to do something with it straight away. Water it. Keep it warm. Shine encouragement on it. Be gentle and allow it to blossom in its own time. Ideas don’t die from nurturing and patience. They get better, they grow, gradually getting to the point where they open up into beautiful and colourful results that others will marvel at.

Have you ever experienced Thoughtful Creativeness? Do you have any tips on how to develop the skill? I’d love to hear your opinions.

Image credit: Microsoft Clip Art


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The Dark Side of Creativity

Lightning streaking across the skyWe’d like to apologize for the delay this week. We’ve got a doozy of an excuse!

On Monday our city experienced a massive storm with hailstones the size of cricket balls, flooding, lightning and cyclonic winds (doesn’t that sound spectacular?). Our house was left without power for almost 24 hours.

Happily, everything’s back up and running. The house suffered minimal water damage and the cars are undented. However, the experience has got us thinking about an interesting subject – how Creativity and Imagination can feed fear.

It’s very common for people to panic in dangerous or scary situations. Your mind races with possibilities, and those possibilities (no matter how remote the chances of them actually happening) scare you even further. I’m sorry to say that your Creativity is partly responsible for this reaction. But I’m here, as a representative of Creativities everywhere, to attempt an explanation of why it happens.

The Magic Question

What is the spark, the catalyst, that starts your Creativity? Well there are a number of things that can spark your Creativity, but often it’s a question: What if?

When you ask this question under relaxed circumstances, it can lead to many fantastic ideas and hours of hilarity. What if pigs could really fly? Where would they land? What if trees grew upside down? What if you crossed an alpaca with a whale shark? What if… Yeah, I love ‘what if’ questions.

But sometimes when you ask this question under stress, your Creativity picks up on this emotion and the questions turn dark. What if my parents have an accident on the way home from work? What if this weird mole turns out to be cancer? What if the wind rips our roof off?

What makes these questions all the more scary is their plausibility. These situations have happened to other people. You see, your Creativity has been doing ‘research.’ He or she remembers previous information where people have accidents, moles turn cancerous and winds damage houses. So in an attempt to be helpful, he or she focuses on real life’ what ifs.’

If your Creativity limited the questions to the ridiculous – What if my parents drove into a mound of purple goo on the way home? What if this mole turned into a sentient being capable of extreme math skills? What if the wind landscaped my garden into a perfect representation of Windsor Palace? – then you wouldn’t be anywhere near as anxious because, lets face it, have you met a mole who can multiply? However, in an attempt to be useful, we Creativities may be a little too zealous in keeping things plausible.

And If You Look Out Your Left Window…

So you’ve got an overactive Imagination and a Creativity who is being too practical for your own good. What can be done?

First of all, please don’t think that your Creativity is necessarily working against you. I’ll admit there are those Creativities out there that take perverse delight in freaking people out. But they’re fewer than we realise. Usually your Creativity is trying to be helpful. The problem is, you’re often asking the wrong questions.

Instead of asking your Creativity ‘What if?’ ‘What is that?’ ‘What might happen next?’ try changing tack. Channel your Creativity’s excitement and helpfulness into more positive areas.

Instead of viewing an event as an ordeal, view it as an adventure. Find aspects you can learn from. Savour any little part of the experience you might find enjoyable. For example, Jessica loves thunderstorms and, needless to say, Monday had thunder and lightning galore. We savoured every flash of lightning and boom of thunder. View these experiences as opportunities to notice new and amazing things. “And now, of you’ll look out your left window you’ll see the whole western horizon illuminated by the wonders of electric discharge.”

I should point out at this point that I’m not encouraging everyone to become blasé about danger and dismiss situations where serious and immediate action must be taken. I’m talking about those occasions where, through the best of intentions, your Creativity is stressing you out. Under those circumstances, try a little redirection. Remember, we want to help. 🙂

How about you? Do you have any thoughts about how Creativity contributes to stress? Or do you have tips about how to redirect your Creativity? Please let us know. 🙂

P.S. If you would like to read more about the subject of fear and the science behind it, take a look at Jeff Wise’s blog Extreme Fear.

Image credit: Microsoft Clip Art