Developing Your Creative Self

The text on Anne Johnson's Exploring Women's Creativity web page reads, "Fostering creativity is a process of joy and discovery. But this doesn't promise that there will be no barriers, no frustrations, and no failures. Instead, creativity will reach into your deepest self; it will continually press and challenge you."

Johnson offers a nice collection of articles on developing your creative self. Here's an excerpt from Building Blocks to Creativity:

"As researchers study the nature of creativity ... they have found evidence that creativity is very much grounded in the individual's knowledge and how she combines her knowledge of dissimilar concepts to create new perspectives. Creativity may seem to appear by magic but in truth it comes from a deep well of information. In fact often the real challenge is to sort out the irrelevant material from the usable. Yet one must still be open to ideas that seem irrelevant and yet may be just the piece needed for the desired result."

From Taking Baby Steps:

"Even though we may not be aware of it, blockages are often created by uncertainty about our ability to do the project up to the standard we have set for ourselves. Sometimes we are concerned there will be criticism by friends or family. Or it could be we need to sell our writing or art and are trying to guess what the editor or consumer will buy. But usually the fear is more internalized and often not even rational. Some of us become such perfectionists there is nothing we can create that we feel is good enough."

And from Living Your Creative Dreams:

"Though we may have sorted out our goals and found ways to work toward them, without an understanding of the creative process we might find our way thwarted. We tend to want to make things happen by sheer will but the creative process is more complex than that. Typically we start with a firm focus and began to work intensely at our projects. This is an important aspect of creativity but cannot sustain itself without some 'moodling' or unfocused time to dream and simply let inspiration in."

Read the entire collection of articles for more in-depth inspiration.