The first creative choice

We often forget that using our creativity means we have to choose our creativity.

And I don’t just mean choosing what to create, although that’s obviously a choice we will need to make too. Before that though, we have to choose what we tell ourselves to be true about our creativity.

 Irrespective of how we’ve been raised, educated or labelled, in spite of everything that’s come before, we have to choose how we think about our creativity now and then, if necessary, choose to think differently.

And we can do this, simply, by choosing to.

This can feel as liberating as it can disorientating, mainly because it is so simple. And perhaps because with it comes the daunting realisation that if this is the case now, then it’s been the case this whole time.

Of course the narratives we’ve spent a lifetime believing might not have been a conscious choice, they may have been inherited rather than chosen, but whether we continue to hold on to them now is where our choice begins.

To access and start using more of our creativity, we can in this very moment, let go of old identities that don’t serve our creativity, and choose new ones that support who we are and who we are capable of becoming.

We can choose to use language that aligns with and supports our new way of thinking.

We can choose that our creativity matters, and grant ourselves permission to use it.

We can choose to see ourselves as being creative. Wildly creative.

Because as long as it’s all a choice, we might as well choose well. In favour of ourselves and not against ourselves.

 Besides, when it comes to the creative process, choosing is not a one-and-done sort of deal. It repeats itself at every stage of the process. Same as it does in life.

The first choice we will need to make isn’t deciding what to create. It’s deciding that we are creative enough to begin.