2.08.2011

My Creativity Creed

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Creativity.  It used to seem so ambiguous to me.  Reserved for the people that were born with the knack for brainstorming.  But, I've been fortunate to be invited into a creative community in Grand Rapids; here I've learned that creativity is an art to be studied, practiced and risked.  Please meet one of my brilliant friends, Cornerstone Professor Don Perini, featured in this recent Grand Rapids Press Article (it also mentions my friends Elizabeth Wing, Jeanette Banashak and SpringHill Camps!).  

One of the benefits of creative friends?  They are always sharing things with you.  Like this Creativity Creed (I got it from Don's Creativity Break-out Session at SpringHill).

  1. Learn the habits of other creative people with passion and imitate them.
  2. Time-vampires are those ugly activities that steal your time.  Slay them. 
  3. Design your environment to inspire you to do extraordinary things. 
  4. In all that you create, make it meaningful and redemptive. 
  5. Your choice of friends is more important than your work or where you live...so choose your creative community wisely.
  6. It takes effort to accomplish any creative endeavor.  Hoping or willing it to happen won't make it happen.  So get to work. 
  7. Capture all your ideas, otherwise they will be lost forever. 
  8. Resistance comes form hell.  Don't allow perfectionism, self-doubt, fear, busyness, or excuses to defeat you.
  9. Life is risk.  It is unavoidable.  There is even risk in playing it safe. 
  10. Keep moving forward no matter how many times you fall.
  11. What you tell yourself is more important than what others say about you. 
  12. Create.  We need your contributions. 
  13. Most people who start a creative endeavor quit.  Don't be that person. 
  14. Reward yourself.  You deserve it.
This is posted near my desk.  And I'm definitely buying Don's new book, Rhyming with Orange.  What are you doing to practice the art of creativity?

3 comments:

Crazy thing is that I just listened to the message he and Jeanette did together at Mars Hill back in 2008 and it was all about creativity! Some of these very same points were in that message. Maybe I'm supposed to be listening to my creative side right now for some reason...

love this... I have a lot to learn about harnesing the energy and documenting. I was once given a lecture in a pool locker room on vacation in Georgia by a woman who happened to be a potter, which she explicitly told me, if you don't use that gift and find time, you will waste it. I don't think any of that was by coincidence.

so fyi, I am driving down to detroit tomorrow to buy a kiln. Used, but I hope its the one I've been waiting for. I am so thankful that our Father who creates us with these desires also helps us trust and chase after them!

Whatever your thinking on - go for it!

I love this! Your writing has been so inspired/inspiring lately. Thanks for challenging me in this area. Love you.

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