Creativity by Rico Weeland
Recently I was wondering – why is it that some months I am more creative than others? I noticed that as an artist, some months I would have a very high output in terms of ideas for my shows, whereas some months hardly anything comes out at all.
When I looked into this further, I noticed that the months where I am more creative, I had been engaging in more creative thoughts. It’s not just about learning new skills, but rather about thinking about new ideas for shows, consulting for potential television shows and thinking about new things to write for my art blog, Invisible Practice (@invisible_practice).
In the months where I wasn’t very creative those other things were also absent. I noticed that creativity is not just something that I can turn on or off. It is actually something that I engage in through writing and practising. Being creative brings forth more creativity, while being uncreative brings forth less.
This is an important point to realise. I used to think that some people were just creative and others weren’t. As if creativity was something that you were born with. But this can’t be further away from the truth.
I used to approach singing in the same way. I thought some people were born with the ability to sing well and other people just didn’t have the right voice. Even though one person’s voice might be better for a certain type of music, we can all train our voices to get the most out of it. We can learn how to properly handle it in order to sing beautifully and to reach the notes that we want to hit.
The same thing applies to creativity, but you have to exercise it. Don’t be afraid to fail and to come up with terrible ideas. If you were to write down ten ideas, you may even find one or two good ideas.
