29 Ways to Stay Creative

Being creative is hard. It’s unpredictable, and difficult to control. Sometimes it just flows (for me, it’s usually when I’m in that in-between state of consciousness, about to fall asleep- which is both wonderful and incredibly annoying), other times you feel like there’s an empty void where all your ideas should be. But there’s nothing like the rush when you create something you’re proud of, when you get a spark of an idea that really excites you, when you solve a problem you’ve been mulling over for ages.

This video by To-Fu gives some lovely advice for nurturing your creativity. I think the most important one is number 5: “Quit beating yourself up.” The biggest barrier to creativity (for me personally) is being crippled by self-doubt and fear and the despair of thinking everything I create is terrible. And the worst part is, so often it stops me from even trying.

It’s so difficult, but somehow you need to just breathe and realise that even if it is terrible, that doesn’t mean everything you’ll ever create for the rest of your life will be terrible. And that those terrible things are almost never really as terrible as you think they are. You have to just put it behind you and try again.

So go for a walk, try something new, drink some coffee. And the tip I’d add to that list: just go for it.