I’ve been reminded by a few people lately I haven’t posted anything to The Creative Infopreneur for a while. And it’s true.

It’s not that I haven’t thought about it, it’s just that I allowed other things to get in the way. Maybe that’s good, maybe not. It’s what happened…

I’ve been very busy starting up a new business called Small Business Clarity where I help small business owners be true to themselves, in their business and their life. I do this through my coaching and consulting services.

There is so much to do when setting up a business like:

• what name to call the business
• what colours and logo to use
• how to market the business
• setting up a website
• putting together the copywriting for the website
• get networking
• figure out pricing structure
• finding the clients

Fortunately I’ve learnt with my other business, Simple Synergy the necessity and benefit of not going it alone.

Particularly with marketing. What you think might work, does not always translate into what does work. So this time round I searched for and found an excellent marketing consultant, Angela at Ideas into Action and asked her to help me.

I can’t tell you what a relief it was. It was like a huge load had been taken off my shoulders. I could have put my own marketing plans together, researched the market, found what kind of logo and colours would work, but it would have taken me ages. And to be honest I wouldn’t have done as good a job and it would have taken me significantly longer to get the business up and running.

I’m writing about this because as creative entrepreneurs, as people who create things whether it’s design, writing, problem solving, idea generation, we need to learn when to let go. If you’re anything like me you like to know how things work and you want to do it yourself. Delegation or outsourcing is not easy.

But you need to learn to let go. To trust that someone else can do a better job than yourself, especially if it’s not your core passion and business. Don’t let it drain you of your creativity, you are too precious for that.

Take the risk and let go. You’ll be amazed at how liberating it can be.

Photo credit: photo credit: divemasterking2000

There are times (well for me at least) when someone criticises my writing, I tend to get defensive straight away. “What would they know?,” I think and often will instantly dismiss whatever the criticism was.

However, I have learnt that if I had given myself the gift of time to consider the comments after the heat of the first emotion has diminished, I would have found in the comments some constructive help in improving my writing and creativity.

I’ve pondered about this and believe the reason creative infopreneurs and writers, like any creative artists, tend to get so defensive about criticism, constructive or otherwise, is that our writing is an offering of a part of ourselves.

It has been formed by tapping into our own creative energy, and is therefore a personal creation. We have a fondness for the words we have chosen to use, and belief in our craft. It’s why as a writer we will often find it very difficult to proofread our own work.

We can’t see our own errors, as easily as we can see someone else’s.

That’s why giving yourself some time to calmly consider whether there is any worth in the criticism offered will help you to become a better writer. It will also boost your creativity.

If you do need to proofread your own work, it also really helps if you give yourself some time to come back to it with a fresh mind. You need to be able to distance yourself from the creative writing process and edit your work, as if someone else actually wrote it.

The easiest way to do this is to do something else in between the writing and proofreading processes. Give yourself some time to come back to it with a clear mind that is not still involved in the creative writing process.

Because writing is a creative process, it is often linked to our moods, how we feel on the day, and responding to situations we find ourselves in as authors.

Some authors have used grief as a catalyst to write a great novel, as Anne McCaffrey did when her father died. The Ship Who Sang was her first real novel and was written in the six months after the death of her father, as she subliminated her grief into her writing.

While this may work in some cases, in others it’s better to give yourself time to distance yourself from your emotions in order to write creatively. If you receive a rejection of your work, don’t make everything else you write in that day appear to be written in anger or disappointment.

These are not the emotions that help you to tap into your creative side.

Instead, if you find yourself reacting in anger, or dwelling on something you perceive as negative that has happened, you may be better off doing something other than writing for a while.

Give yourself the gift of a half an hour to think about the problem that is haunting you, and come up with an appropriate action plan to deal directly with the issue. Then, when you have calmed down and are no longer responding to your emotions, you will find your mind is clear and able to focus on your creative writing again.

Give yourself the gift of time to think when you need it, time to recover from the heat and passion of negative emotions, and time to clear your mind to be able to focus creatively on your writing.

This is the last article for T=Time. Next time I’ll be looking at S = Stretch yourself, which is the final letter in CREATIVE HABITS. Until then.
photo credit: redstamp.com

Quite a lot as it happens! Why? Because it’s a great way to slow down, relax and let your mind wander towards that magical ‘aha’ moment.

We are all so used to being busy. We generally live our lives at a hectic pace, moving from one project to another, one job to another, multi-tasking, rushing to get somewhere to do another task, that we rarely just stop and think.

If we do, we assume we are being lazy. Why do we think this?

The truth is that while our minds might be able to cope with doing several tasks at once, true creative thinking can’t happen while we are focusing on doing tasks.

Fishing, or at least sitting on a boat and dangling a line over the edge, is not actually a waste of time. It is simply slowing the hectic pace of everyday life enough to have time to think. You don’t even need the line!

photo credit: Paul L. Nettles

The idea is to find time to sit still, relax, and allow your mind to flow from thought to thought. People who practice creative habits know how important it is to put some time aside to just think.

Contemplation takes time and often it is in these sessions of apparently doing nothing that the mind is free to mull over half formed thoughts of the past. Often you will find that having had some time to ponder and put your thoughts together will mean that when you do sit down to write, it all just flows.

You will find that time spent thinking helps your creative writing, because it gives you the opportunity to see things from new perspectives.

This is one of the main reasons many people feel a creative job is out of their reach: they don’t actually give themselves the time to actively create by doing nothing but thinking.

All great artists know the value of creative thinking time – consider Auguste Rodin, who created a statue dedicated to beauty of thinking – The Thinker. If you want to be creative in your life and in your writing, give yourself some empty time each day just to think.

Social studies have proven that those who take time to contemplate each day are more creative, more at peace, and have a greater capacity for experiencing joy in their lives.

Sitting and dreaming, watching a fire can be quite a good substitute in winter for the fishing. Give yourself some ‘fire gazing’ time, even if you don’t have a fire. It helps you to sort out your thoughts and to relax enough to tap into your creative side.

Obviously, you may not have time to go fishing every day, but giving yourself a spare half hour a day in which you allow creative thinking to just happen, without distractions, and without feeling guilty about doing ‘nothing’, will work wonders for your creative writing.

It’s important to get over the mindset that just because you are not doing anything physical, you are not working. Take some time out to think creatively and you will find the writing is more productive when you do write.

Try some of these quick exercises to encourage delving into contemplation and thinking creatively quicker:

• Brainstorm ideas for writing about by making a list of as many titles you can think of in five minutes.

• Free writing – where you give yourself five minutes to just write (handwrite) anything that comes to mind. The pen must be moving on the paper for the full five minutes, and you don’t try to correct your writing or write perfectly. It is about idea generation and allowing your mind to connect ideas, rather than a writing exercise.

• Write a poem, a short story, a letter, or a diary entry. Create something for yourself, instead of for a particular audience. Write for the sheer enjoyment and freedom that comes with being a writer, rather than writing to only make money.

• Put together some pictures cut out from magazines and give yourself time to ponder the ideas that come from looking at these pictures, or a series of pictures that tells a story.

Try to set aside half an hour each day for thinking. In that time, turn off the phone, and don’t allow distractions.

Give yourself the joy of being able to mull over any issues without any dramas.

Give yourself the gift of contemplating time and take pleasure in your creative side.

Go on, give it a try and let me know how it works out.