Melissa Dinwiddie | Create the Impossible™ | Innovation Keynote Speaker & Consultant
Empower your team to innovate on demand. Melissa Dinwiddie helps tech leaders Create the Impossible™ through playful, interactive workshops and keynotes. Unlock breakthrough creativity today.
I’m a real tender heart. Sometimes a glimpse at a disaster like the ones most recently in the news will take me down a rat hole of thinking about all the suffering that’s going on in the world, and I can barely function.
How can I be joyful and nourish my own creative spirit when people are suffering?
How can I go off on retreat to make art when there are children dying in Africa?
How can I go to music camp in the summer when [Read more…]
One from the archives, originally published on 11/13/12. Given that “what’s the point?” is the number one reason I hear for creativity not having a bigger place in people’s lives, this one felt ripe for a revisit. Enjoy! xo,Melissa
Years ago, when I was still a fairly new calligrapher, a contingent from my south Bay Area calligraphy guild, Pacific Scribes, took a field trip to the San Francisco Public Library, where we were treated to a private viewing of several calligraphic treasures from the Harrison Collection.
(Richard Harrison was a local calligrapher, and a collector of calligraphy, who donated his entire collection to the library in 1963. The collection contains nearly 1,000 examples of modern calligraphy, including manuscripts, broadsides, handwritten books, fine prints, drawings and sketches.
Now anyone [Read more…]
There are so many reasons people cite for why creativity doesn’t hold a bigger place in their lives.
Time is certainly a big one — I don’t know anyone who doesn’t have way too much to do and not enough time to do it in.
Then there’s self-doubt — the gremlin voices that tell you you’re not good enough, you’ll never be good enough, and certainly never as good as your heroes, so why bother? And who do you think you are to even try, anyway?
And then there’s the nagging sense of [Read more…]
This is Part 2 in a three-part series. Find Part 1 here. To recap:
I had the great pleasure of being interviewed recently as a guest expert for Sue Ann Gleason‘s Well-Nourished Woman Inner Circle. One of the things Sue Ann asked me about was the three complaints she hears from women when she asks them where creativity lives in their well-nourished lives.
For too many of them, that creativity is absent, and for one of the following reasons:
Each of these reasons is a lie. A story we tell ourselves out of fear, or programming, but with no basis in reality.
Yesterday we looked at lie #1, No Talent. Today we look at…
Part of my mission is to change the story in our culture that expressing creativity is a frivolous, and selfish, waste of time.
“If you can’t sell it or quantify it, or if it doesn’t make money or save a life, how can it be of value?” goes the story.
All very well and good if you’re a Puritan and an ascetic. But my belief system says that joy makes my life worth living, and creative expression brings me joy. (Click to tweet this.)
Creative expression has no purpose? How about the purpose of making my life a delight, instead of a slog through a vat of oatmeal? (Click to tweet this.)
And though I can’t say that art has literally prevented me from dying, it has made my life worth living. Feeding my hunger to create has turned my world from shades of grey to vivid Technicolor™. I’m happier and more fulfilled, which means I have more to give to others.
But that’s not the only purpose to be found in creative expression.
Whatever I create, even when I’m “just” mucking about in the Creative Sandbox, I do so with the ultimate goal of touching people.
I write songs to make people laugh, and often to make a point through satire.
I create art to inspire.
I write because I want to unravel my own thinking and change people’s lives.
Your purpose may be different, but anything that creates a connection with other human beings is, by definition, filled with purpose.
In addition, when I allow myself time and space for my creativity, I also model for others that yes, they can do the same!
How can that possibly be “selfish”??
“Without music,” said Nietzsche, “life would be a mistake.” Without joy, my life would be a mistake, and pursuing my creative desires is one of the fastest routes to joy for me. Filling up on creative joy allows me to share more of myself with others, and bring more joy to the world.
Sorry, as I wrote yesterday, “no talent” is no excuse, and “no purpose” is not going to fly as an excuse, either.
Click here to read about lie #3, No Time.
Ready to discover for yourself the joyful purpose that is your creativity? Sign up for my free (free!) Creative Sandbox 101 mini-course through Kickstart Your Change.
It’s five days of tools and prompts to get you playing in the Creative Sandbox just a teeny-tiny bit every day. (Plus everyone who registers will get a bonus coupon on the last day of Creative Sandbox 101 to get 30% off my 30-day Creative Ignition Kit through Monday, December 10.)
PS — Pssst! Know someone who might benefit from seeing this today? Pass it on!
