You just never know… I mean I never imagined when I put a video on YouTube about this time last year that it would get so many views! So far over 2,400. Woohoo!!

I initially did it as a test – to see whether I could create a half decent video and get it up on YouTube. And I must confess it took me a couple of goes and the help of a friend, but I did it.

At first, I would login and look at the statistics and then over time I forgot about it. Like all things, life moves on and although I had good intentions to make another video – well you know what happens…

Then, the other week I was looking through my Google accounts and on impulse logged into YouTube to have a quick look. Imagine my surprise and absolute delight when I saw the numbers and the fact that people had bothered to rate and refer it.

I must admit it’s motivated me to do another one, I’m not sure about the topic but when I’ve done it I’ll let you know. I’m learning that if you don’t ‘toot your own horn’ then nobody will. Firstly because they don’t know about it, and secondly if you’re not interested in celebrating your achievements why would they?

What does all this mean? To me I’ve learnt three key lessons:

Be bold and give it a go

You never know unless you try. It’s an old adage and frequently cited and it is very true. We (take that as an I) worry about what people will think, what happens if no-one likes it, think to myself if only I didn’t stutter here or stumble there.

So what? What is the worse that could happen? And is that a bad thing? Doing anything creative always has an element of risk about it. It’s what you learn from it that counts. It’s the picking yourself up, dusting yourself off and moving on to the next creative endeavour that counts.

It’s not usually personal

None of us are the same. We think and feel differently. So how we interpret what’s before us is very much a personal thing.  It’s our life experiences and how we are feeling at that moment in time that colours our thoughts.

If I’m having a bad hair day or had a disagreement with someone, chances are I’m going to look at something with a more critical eye than if I was in a happy and generous mood. And so any comments, ratings or leaving before the finish is more about the person who is viewing than you.

I learnt this lesson from my video being used as a class exercise to comment on and give thoughts on the content. Once I realised it wasn’t personal (I mean get over yourself Jan), I was able to enjoy the fact someone thought enough of it to use it in a class lesson.

You just need to remind yourself of this when you start to tie yourself in knots about it.

It’s OK to be yourself

In fact it’s better than OK, it’s a must. Trying to be who you think others want you to be is hard work. And if you’re anything like me (basically lazy), it’s much easier to be yourself. It’s more fun and the rewards, I think, are greater.

Creativity is about you. Who you are, what you feel and think. How you see things. And that’s what brings colour into both our own and others lives.

What now? I don’t know about you but I’m going to continue to be bold and give whatever takes my fancy a go,  not worry about what other people think and most importantly of all, be myself.

If you’re interest and have a spare 9 or so minutes (lesson learnt – make the video shorter,  4-5 minutes seems to be best) click here to view the YouTube video. It’s called the ‘Seven Key Skills of Facilitation’ and I originally did it for my Team Coaching website www.simplesynergy.com.au

photo credit: Jonathan Shield

When Olympic athletes go out onto the field, it’s the culmination of many years of hard work, endurance, dreaming, and working to build up the appropriate muscles to win at the chosen sport.

Those who want to succeed at creative writing will need the same dedication, persistence, and hard work. Athletes always stretch and warm up the physical muscles before attempting to win the race, throw the javelin, or complete the highest jump in the world.

You too, can stretch and warm up your brain in order to encourage the creative juices to start flowing.

There are many ways you can stretch your skills as a creative writer. You can practice your craft, accept new challenges, give yourself time to dream, put in the hard yards, persist even when it is difficult, create games that stretch your creativity, create unnecessary or ‘fun’ writing, and work to perfect your trade skills. All of these activities will encourage your creativity and will help you to stretch your creative habits to become a better writer.

Here are some of my favourite ways to stretch and warm up my mental muscles, before I sit down to write:

• Complete some physical exercise. This gets the body and mind energised because of the increased blood flow and circulation to the brain.

• Find a new word in the dictionary and practice using it in three different sentences. This helps to get my mind focused on the art of writing, and gives me a quick warm up activity that also increases my vocabulary.

• Read an interesting article in a newspaper or magazine and spend a few minutes thinking about I would have written a similar article.

• Play a word game that gets me thinking about how words go together.

• Write something just for fun. For example, a writer friend and I are currently writing a short story, one paragraph at a time. She writes a paragraph and sends it to me, and then I write one. Joining a writing group and doing similar activities can be a great way to flex and warm up your mental muscles. It also makes you remember that writing is meant to be a fun, creative activity.

Besides stretching to warm up before sitting down to write, I also like to stretch my creative habits in general by:

• Being willing to accept new challenges from clients, by writing on topics I either don’t know much about or may find difficult to write about.  Accepting challenges helps to develop writing skills in different ways and stretches your ability, so that next time it is not nearly so difficult. I love to work to improve as a writer.

• Work to develop my writing skills, by constant proofreading, checking, and editing. Finding a variety of synonyms to use, so that the same words are not used every paragraph can develop my writing skills. I challenge myself to make every piece of writing interesting for the intended audience.

• Spend time practicing the art of creative writing. Although you may not quite forget how to ride a bike, you find you are able to ride further, quicker, and enjoy it more when you ride regularly. The same thing happens with creative writers, the more you write, the better you get at perfecting your craft.

There are so many ways to stretch and expand your writing abilities and your skill in tapping into the creative aspect of writing. See what ideas work best for you, and then work to stretch your creative habits. Enjoy your creative writing!

This is the last article in the CREATIVE HABITS series, as we have explored S=Stretch Yourself.  I hope you have enjoyed it and been able to use some of my tips in your infopreneurial and writing endeavours.

I’m not sure what I’ll be writing about next – I might just write randomly about my thoughts and experiences as I continue down the creativity path. A bit like a cork bobbing about in the water letting the currents take me on some exciting new adventure. Or maybe not. You’ll just have to stayed tuned….

Wow… we’re at the last letter in CREATIVE HABITS. S=Stretch yourself.

It’s been a while since I last wrote here, and part of it was because I overstretched myself and haven’t been doing a very good job at juggling all the balls I had in the air.  But that’s what happens when you stretch yourself and go for creating your own future.

You see, I’m also a business coach. I love helping businesses develop strategies and plans for sustainable growth. As a coach I help them develop and use creative and critical thinking skills in their business. Creativity is at the core of every successful business and sometimes we forget that. We become so focused on the outcome or product we forget we also need to focus on the process.

Enough of my soapbox… if you’re interested to find out more, particularly around creativity in business visit my website Simple Synergy. I do a lot of writing there as well!

Now to Stretching your creative habits and my thoughts on this…

Without challenges in life people become stagnant and dull. Everyone needs a fresh challenge every now and then, just to keep life interesting. The same is true with our creative writing. Sometimes working on a project that is outside your comfort zone will help stretch your mind.
photo credit: brdavids

Every now and then, I get a writing assignment from a client or myself that makes me think, “Oh boy, I’m in for it now, I’m not sure I can do this”. However, when I give myself a chance to actually try it, I often find I can do it. Stretching is important because it keeps your art from growing stale.

There are many ways you can stretch and develop your creative habits for the future. Accepting assignments that challenge you as a writer is only one way to increase your creative capacity.  You can stretch creatively by writing something that is purely for your fun, rather than for immediate sale. You may try writing in a new format, such as poems, short stories, or even stretch yourself to actually write that great novel you’ve always dreamed about writing.

Part of being willing to develop your craft as a writer is being able to accept the challenges of dealing with constructive criticism, learning from it, and changing the way you write to gain better audience coverage, and more attention from readers. Stretching yourself with your writing will help to continue to develop and polish your writing skills.

When athletes prepare for a race, one of the first things they do is stretch their muscles, particularly those being used to win the race. Writers should do the same thing. Participating in some simple creative mind exercises can increase your creativity and can help add interest to your writing.  Here are some exercises to stretch your creative habits:

• Picture Match. Cut out a number of pictures from magazines or newspapers. Put the pictures into a big envelope and shake the envelope. Pull out two pictures at random and give yourself five minutes to write about the pictures.

• Dictionary Find. Randomly open a page in the dictionary and read until you find a word you didn’t already know the meaning of. Read the meaning and then create three completely different sentences using the word. Not only does this help to engage the mind and is as effective for getting the mind ready for work as stretching our physical muscles, but it also increases your knowledge of vocabulary and word usage.

• Title Swap. Randomly choose three books from your bookshelf. Using the words of the three titles, combine the titles into one new title. Alternatively to really stretch your mind, come up with three completely new titles for possible books, using only those words in the original titles.

These kinds of five minute creative activities help to stretch your mind and get your brain ready for the creative work of writing.

Stretch your creative writing habits by accepting new challenges and warm up the brain by quick, non-essential, creative games that encourage the mind to start tapping into the creative side. Stretching will help you to develop the trade of writing and will help to engage with the reader.

What do you do to stretch yourself creatively?

How do you push those creative boundaries even further?

I’d love to hear your thoughts.