photo credit: piermario

But the “artistic endeavors” are just a single piece of the pie that is creativity.

Creativity is less about what you do and more about how you do it.

1. Limit the information being shoved at your brain in tiny bits and pieces.

start spending less time with those tidbits.

“Creativity is the ability to connect disparate ideas in new and useful ways,” says Sara C. Mednick, PhD, assistant professor in the department of psychiatry at the University of California, San Diego in this article.

If your brain is only willing to munch on one tidbit at a time,

2. Find time for bigger stories.

3. Hang out with creative people

4. Expand your idea of what creativity is.

5. Be more silly, unafraid, juvenile, child-like.

6. Reject the first five ideas/solutions/answers you come up with for any given need/problem/question.

7. Give yourself limits:

• a $50/week grocery budget [money limit]
• 15 minutes to cook dinner [time limit]
• use your non-dominant hand to write or draw [ability limit]
• find a decent outfit at the thrift store [resource limit]

8. Get around different cultures, different people, different ways of life.

We get to boxed into our own version of normal, and when that’s all we see, we forget that normal is an arbitrary thing, defined differently by different people in different places and different times. Even in the same place and time, you can find all sorts of differences of normal when you venture into different subcultures. Are you a Christian? Hang out with some atheists. Are you from the city? Spend a weekend with a family of farmers; it’s a whole new normal. From the North? Go down South.

9. Fire your critic.

10. Get into unfamiliar, uncomfortable, strange, new, unnerving situations.

“A mother is not a person to lean on but a person to make leaning unnecessary.”
(Dorothy Canfield Fisher)

“Any non-life-threatening steps your child takes toward independence are wonderful. …Parenthood is all about inspiring and equipping the members of the next generation so we can pass the baton. It’s never too early to start.” ( Barbara Curtis, The Mommy Survival Guide)

Kids will be just about as resourceful as we will let them be.

Resourceful: capable of acting effectively or imaginatively, esp. in difficult situations. (The American Heritage Dictionary, 2nd College Edition)

Concept 1: Liberty given is different than freedom demanded.

A child must have some measure of independence to act creatively and become resourceful; if a child is completely controlled, there’s simply no opportunity for the mental wiggle room needed to become resourceful. However, this does not mean that you should respond to a child’s defiance or demands with more freedom, in order to give him the opportunity. Liberty given by the parent to a child who has earned it by consistent obedience is what creates plenty of room for resourcefulness. But freedom demanded by the child, and arbitrarily (passively or otherwise) granted by the parent simply encourages rebellion.

Before you think about teaching your child how to be resourceful, teach your child how to obey and respect your authority. Do so by being consistent, day in and day out, and by earning that respect with your loving, clear, and consistent instruction and discipline.

Concept 2: Ask direct questions (and expect answers) to help them think resourcefully.

Because our children come to us as completely helpless infants, we get in the habit of doing everything for them. We have to! But as children mature and develop both mentally and physically, they will automatically reach out for more independence of their own. The baby who had to have his head supported now holds it up and looks around. The baby who had to be carried learns to scoot, then crawl, then walk and run. The child whose baby-babble had to be interpreted and guessed at becomes a vocal master who won’t shush. Children naturally grow toward more autonomy, and that’s the way it should be.

We can help them learn how to be resourceful by asking specific questions when they run into difficulties. Instead of doing it for them, ask them questions to get them thinking about how to do it themselves. This is sometimes as easy as a simple questions (“Where have you looked for your shoes?”) and sometimes requires a little bit more of a process.

For example: my daughter can’t reach the light switch, so I show her how to get the stool, place it on the floor, stand on it and reach the switch. Now, the next time she asks me to turn on the light I do not tell her what to do, I ask her a direct question:

“What could you use to help you reach the light switch?”

Why ask instead of tell? So they learn to think! So they remember! So they work the process out in their own minds instead of just responding like robots to our instructions.
There are already so many things that we have to tell, instruct, and teach in; we should seize the ones that allow them to do the telling and thinking.

You can wait for opportunities to arise, like the example above. There will be many. You can also take it a step further by asking your children to teach you something (of course you already know; just pretend!).

“Mara, how did you paint that flower to be so pretty?”

Mara answers with a step-by-step tutorial on making the big circle in the middle, and the little circles around the outside for petals… Mara is repeating back to me the same instruction I gave her a few days ago when she asked me how to paint the flower. But now she’s teaching, and I’m listening. I ask another question, now…

“Hmmm… I wonder how we could paint the sun?”

I don’t tell her how; I haven’t ever given her instruction. But she will think and come up with a way and tell me about it. “We do a big circle like a flower and then little lines out like this and it’s a sun!”

Concept 3: Teach over their heads and on every level beneath to help them learn about their resources.

A few nights ago the kids were cuddling in bed with us while Daddy drew pictures for them on the laptop’s drawing program. Daddy decided to teach them about rocket science. (Mommy just giggled.) So off he goes, as Mommy cuddled the baby, to explain to a 2 and a 3 year old about rocket ships and blasts and launches and astronauts and planets and the moon and orbits and the sun (which is just a mass of incandescent gas, after all…) and all manner of things related. (This is just another reason why we love Daddy so… Mommy doesn’t have to teach science and math and all the other hard stuff.)

The next day Robbie and I drew a rocket ship with FIRE! coming out of the blasters (is that what they’re called?) and hung it on the window to show Daddy. (Mara did balloons, and we hung that up, too. It’s related. They were helium-filled balloons…).

So, rocket science and toddlers. Of course they don’t get it all (neither do I), but they’ve got a whole new vocabulary and a little more understanding of what’s out there in our world and beyond our world.

Never forego an opportunity to teach just because they won’t get it yet.

Teach, talk, share, explain, show, tell, on and on. Explain what you’re doing, how you’re doing it, and then tell them everything related you can think about. When I let the kids help me cook, we talk about what we’re cooking.

“This is cilantro. It’s an herb. We’re going to mince it up and sprinkle it on top of our fajitas. Cilantro is used a lot in Mexican cooking, which is what we’re doing tonight, and it’s in Chinese food, too. You remember Chinese food? Like egg rolls and crab rangoon. You guys liked the crab rangoon. And Mommy likes to grow cilantro in the garden, and we’ll plant some…”

And so on.

Teaching like this – offering information – is helpful on many levels but specifically, as regards teaching resourcefulness, you are creating an awareness and understanding of the many possibilities in the world. You’re opening their eyes to all the concepts one little herb can represent. I like to talk about how different families and cultures do things in different ways, just so they get the concept that there’s not always a “right” way. This kind of talking and thinking is the precursor to them seeing more than the obvious, relating disparate things to one another, connecting the dots, so to speak. And those abilities of analysis and creativity, coming together to make different parts into a cohesive whole, is foundational for resourceful living.

Concept 4: Make it possible for them to succeed.

Children live in an adult-sized world. Barbara Curtis describes it like this, in her book The Mommy Survival Guide: “Imagine living in a home where all the pictures hang three feet above your eye level, where kitchen counters are mysterious surfaces where you just know all kinds of exciting things are going on that you can never see. Imagine having to climb onto a chair whose seat is 54 inches off the groud and feeling lost in the bigness, perched at the edge with your feet dangling in midair” (26).

In order to be resourceful, children need to be able to deal with the over-sized objects around them. They can’t be self-sufficient enough to switch off the lights if they can’t reach the light switch – unless you provide a handy little step stool. They can’t get their own dish and spoon unless you put them in a cabinet they can access. They can’t get down toys unless they’re reachable. They can’t hang clothes on a clothing rod 3 feet above their heads.
Give your children tools and helps to enable them to navigate their way, and show them how to use those tools. Teach them where you keep things, so they can go get what they need (after they ask you). And give them some areas, toys, and other materials that they can use anytime. Set up play spots, art spots, reading spots, and the like. Let them know what they are free to use at any time. Of course, the older they get and the more they prove themselves trustworthy, the more access and freedom they should be granted.

Concept 5: Remove the detriments to resourcefulness.

I’m going to share a few bad habits I’ve noticed in myself that hinder resourcefulness. I slip up in these often, still, and I have a feeling it’s a common thing… See if any of these sound like you.

Jumping in to do it for them.

If they can’t open a door, reach a tissue, find a toy… it’s easier and faster to just do it for them. Nothing is more detrimental to learning resourcefulness than to have someone constantly stepping in to take over when things get the teensiest bit difficult. A child treated this way will come to expect it, will resist any challenge, and will certainly struggle with feeling resentful when life demands a certain amount of initiative. Don’t make that your child!

Take the time to train. Take the time to ask questions. Give a 2-minute lesson in how to work that tricky doorknob. Take 3 minutes to show your 3-year-old how to tear off one paper towel at a time. Take 5 minutes to ask enough questions to get them searching the right spots until they find the toy.

Letting them revert to baby-like behavior when circumstances aren’t good…

…(or for any other reason). Once a child has demonstrated his ability to do something for himself, you shouldn’t let him go back to needing your help for it. Oh, I have made this mistake! And I have regretted it! Mara was in love with getting herself dressed, thrilled with the newness and her own ability… until one day I needed her to get dressed a little faster. So I helped. The newness had worn off just enough that she liked how much easier it was with Mommy doing it. Now I have to continually remind her to do it herself, to keep trying until she gets it. My fault. I trained her… Now I have to untrain her!

And this is so tempting when the kids are sick or overly tired, or you’ve been running errands all day and they’ve been so good, or your schedule has been crazy, or you have company. I’m just saying, from experience, don’t lose the ground you’ve gained just to gain a couple of minutes on a busy morning. Don’t do it for them. Don’t let them revert. Encourage! Explain! Remind! Ask questions! Instruct! Praise! But don’t do it for them. Help if help is really and sincerely needed. Otherwise, give some encouragement and direction and back off. Give them time. They’ll figure it out.

Teaching them there’s a one-and-only right way for doing things.

Of course, in some matters there is only a right and wrong. Those are called moral choices, and we need to stick to absolutes and be very clear about them. But for anything that’s not a moral issue, “right” and “wrong” really shouldn’t come into the conversation. There might be good/better, or fast/slow, or easy/hard, or other signifiers that help them decide how to do things.

There are lots of different ways to do the same things, and there are also lots of different uses for those common objects we adults get a little too specific with. Kids are the best at figuring out every possible use for random household objects. Let them! That is natural resourcefulness at its finest.

Giving them lots of ready-made, plastic-perfect toys for “imaginative” play.

I’ve been slowly weeding out all the plastic food that came with Mara’s play kitchen. Why? Well, first, because they end up everywhere and it’s irritating to pick them up. Two, because I just don’t like plastic toys much. And third, because I love what Mara comes up with when she doesn’t have a perfect replica on hand. She makes soup out of gravel and ice cream from bark and the main dish might be a pine cone or some sprigs of wheatgrass. Whatever it is, I love that she is coming up with her own materials. That is the essence of imaginative play.

Some things are great, sure, for a child to have to work with and build upon. The play kitchen itself, for instance, and there’s nothing wrong with fake food at all. But it isn’t necessary. (And you know, if she didn’t have the play kitchen, she’d make one out of a box or a table…). You have to watch out for this when you go toy shopping. Too much perfection, too much stuff that is already finished… it can cut out room for the imagination, and that’s an essential part of being resourceful. I try to buy toys that are multi-purpose, raw materials that can be shaped to any sort of use, things that are basic and sturdy and high-quality and full of possibility.

How do you teach resourcefulness to your child?

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Image by Kamal H. on Flickr.

Revelations or Epiphanies or Something

I had a couple of “mini-revelations” yesterday. I love those. I won’t call them epiphanies, exactly, but they’re big for me.
One is this: There is no perfect writing topic/subject/job for me. I just like to write, period. I like to write about almost anything. The key is (and this is the second mini-revelation) that
In order to be inspired I need to be immersed.
I need input, and lots of it, to create a continual flow of output. Otherwise I just kind of run dry.

The Input for Inspiration

For me, that best input comes in three forms.
The first is the written word.
I need books, articles, thoughtful and inspiring blogs, poems that shake my heart up, novels that wrap me up in another world, how-tos and tutorials and ideas and magazines and newspapers and quotes and lists and letters and journals. I love to learn and I learn best from the written word. When I learn, I get excited about sharing; my brain takes the new information and races off with it in a hundred directions. I can’t move my pen fast enough to jot down my thoughts.

The second is nature. Outside. Outdoors. Walking, hiking, throwing down a blanket and playing with Zeke in the sunshine. Tromping the trails with Mara and Robbie, showing them the first daffodil, the silent, faithful, soft green moss, the flattened, sweet-smelling grass where the deer sleep. Something about – no, everything about – the real, beautiful, fresh and muddy world is refreshing to my soul and my brain. Being outdoors is when all those words start percolating in my mind, start mixing with my dreams and hopes and values, start bubbling up into new ideas and thoughts and hopes that just need to be shared.

The third is conversation. Talking with my husband, my best friends, or strangers gives me windows into how other people process and think. My husband will come up with completely different spins on what I hear and read. I share a little idea with him, and together we toss it around, critique it, expand it, change it, name it, morph it like a ball of Silly Putty.
Conversations with dear friends are the same way; they expand my thinking, my perspective, my whole world. And strangers! Don’t get me started on this. I love talking to strangers. I think I scare them sometimes. But I’m fascinated by how people think and live, by what they do and feel and how they view the world. When I start talking to strangers, I walk away with ideas for articles and books just popping out of my head. (This may be why people run away from me in the parking lot. Hm.)

No Waiting on the Muse

The result of these mini-revelations is one big thought: I control my own inspiration. This is huge, as a writer. I don’t have to wait to “be inspired” from some mysterious force. I have identified what inspires me most, and most consistently. I just need to grab that stuff when I’m feeling dry. I need to make sure that those sources of inspiration are a huge part of my life.

So what’s your inspiration? What’s your source? What gets you ticking? And how can you make room for more of it in your life?

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This post is part of the 30-Minute Blogging Challenge at SteadyMom. (25 minutes.)
Image courtesy of markbarky.

I Always Feel Like I Am Compromising

If I focus on writing, working, I feel the lack (dreadfully) in what I am as a mother.
If I focus on being Mommy, making a home, I feel something in my soul begin to scream. Too long at that, it grows silent and still. Too still. In-the-throes-of-death silent (though, now that I think of it, “throes” don’t seem that silent).

Joe comes home and asks, “How was your day?” and I laugh a crazy little laugh of desperation and answer: “Oh, great, you know, changing diapers, doing laundry, the usual. Yours?”
And I have nothing else to say.

Average or Exceptional

I listened to a podcast yesterday and in it this is what caught me, this small instruction: get a sticky note and a pencil. On your note, write either “I am average” or “I am exceptional.” Put your note up, on your computer or wherever you work or sit or think. Now, if you wrote “I am average,” then you’re good. You’ve got nothing to worry about. Live your average life in peace. But if you wrote “I am exceptional,” then how dare you waste your life doing average work and average things when you know you are meant for more?

Guilty, Guilty, A Thousand Times Guilty!

There’s a tragedy in thinking we are all called into the same kind of life. We apply moral standards to matters of personality, preferences… then we judge accordingly.

The gavel comes down. Guilty. You have not met the current cultural standard for ________________. Fill in the blank. It could be anything. It applies to everything. The real guilt, though, is in denying the true self, the true calling.

What’s tricky is where the lines blur.

Wife, Mom, Homemaker: roles I have wanted, roles I now fill, which are fulfilling, genuine me.

Martha Stewart, endless crafty projects with the kids, decorating cookies: not me.

I can try. I can feel guilty. But if I start being that person and doing those things because I feel guilty, because I feel some kind of societal pressure, there’s no real gain. The motive matters.

It’s Just Your Ovaries Talking

The burden lies upon us to ask these real questions and find the real answers: Am I average or am I exceptional? What am I meant to be? What am I meant to do?

And before any one of you ladies answers, I strike an option from the list of possibilities: do not, repeat, do NOT answer with “I’m meant to be a Mommy.” Sure you are. You’ve got ovaries, don’t you? As the female member of the species, you can bet you’re meant to be a Mommy. It’s a drive, an instinct, a gift, a calling. Good.
It’s also a cop-out.

For some short period of your life, motherhood will require your attention on a pretty constant basis.
But for the rest of your life, it won’t, or at least it shouldn’t. You might let it, and if you do, it’s probably because you’re afraid of who you are without it. You’re afraid you’ve got nothing more.

“Fear has always seemed to me to be the worst stumbling block which anyone has to face. It is the great crippler” ( Eleanor Roosevelt, p. 25, You Learn by Living).

The Secret to Being Better at EVERYTHING! (insert gleam on tooth, twinkle in eye)

Listen up, sister. You’ve got more. And here’s a little secret I’ve learned from in the trenches: the more I engage that part of me that isn’t about being a Mommy, the better I am at the part that is a Mom. And the more I enjoy it.

Motherhood was never meant to diminish us into little cooking-cleaning automatons. Let motherhood be the catalyst for your creativity, and start pouring it out in every direction. Find yourself, and you’ll find that you’re a better Mom.

Image courtesy of x-ray delta one.

Resistance is the most toxic force on the planet.

It is the root of more unhappiness than poverty, disease, and erectile dysfunction. To yield to Resistance deforms our spirit. It stunts us and makes us less than we are and were born to be. If you believe in God (and I do) you must declare Resistance evil, for it prevents us from achieving the life God intended when He endowed each of us with our own unique genius. (From the book The War of Art by Steven Pressfield)

The work of art, of creation, is given all of us.

We have a calling. Starting a profitable business, baking cookies, writing poetry, raising children, running a shop, fixing cars, making crafts, designing shoes, doing accounts, designing curriculum, painting, singing, reading, reviewing, helping, overseeing, managing, organizing; whatever the term, some action, some work for life, is yours. It belongs to you and you belong to it. No one is relieved of this responsibility. No one is inartistic, or unable, just dull, unmotivated, lazy, fearful.

Every attempt we make toward something higher and better finds resistance.

We camouflage the call. We are afraid to see it. We make it all so complicated when most of it is so very, very simple. Go check the Self-Help section. Hundreds of titles all say essentially the same thing. This month’s version has newer packaging and a cuter catch-phrase. But it’s either 1) stuff you know instinctively or 2) drivel to make you feel good about ignoring the stuff you know instinctively.

This article, for instance.

You don’t need it.

You know there are things you need to do in life. You know there are particular things for you to do. You feel the tug. You know there is resistance because you are the one resisting. You even know what to do about the resistance, don’t you? No? Can’t remember? I’ll give you a hint:

Ignore the resistance and do what you’re supposed to do anyway. Take action.

(Okay, that was more than a hint.) But you knew already! You could probably write this article but for one small quality I (we assume) have and you (we assume) would like to have more of: the voice of successful experience.

Oh yes, you have experience.

You have knowledge. but you’re reading this article on the premise that I, the Author-with-a-capital-A, not only have the knowledge but also have the map to the secret goldmine you need: success in applying the knowledge. That little glimmer of gold is what keeps the self-help genre alive. If we share the same knowledge, have similar experience, but I have succeeded and you have not (yet, you say to yourself), then I must have the secret. The key. The difference. It’s in this article, somewhere. If you read it all, it will be bestowed upon you, like a prize for wading through all the paragraphs: the final key to insert into the slot which will unlock the door which will release the treasure of your own creative genius successfully!

It’s just a flash in the pan.

Ever hear of fool’s gold? It’s just a sparkly mineral, but there were lots of gold rush miners who got pretty excited. For a while.

The only thing I know that you don’t know is that there is no secret to success.

Understand, I’m not saying there is nothing secret about the deep, divine, meaningful, beautiful, worthwhile things of life. There is, and all of us struggle continually to get closer, get more, get immersed, or else to utterly deny its existence. We identify with different parts of the struggle. Marriage, parenting, organizing, self-esteem, setting limits, creative flow. Whatever. The common, and misleading, theme is this: You are a Victim and I, the Helpful Author/Owner/Guru will set you free. I have the key that you, poor child, were never given. I have the question you didn’t know you could ask. I’m not better or smarter or worthier… just luckier.

Here’s a simple idea we need to deconstruct:

If I’m not successful (moreso than you) because I am better/smarter/worthier than you, why should you listen to me? Don’t you want a teacher who is wiser than you? Yes. You do. Heretofore you have gone right along with (sincere or not) self-deprecating authors and have attributed success to that lucky something, that missing piece they somehow found that you somehow missed. They were good enough to share it with you. That’s only right, really.

Let’s rethink all that.

I’m not saying I am smarter or better or worthier than you. I’m probably not. What I am saying is this: there is no secret that lucky people know and unlucky people don’t. Success depends upon your choices and your actions, your habits and your diligence, your persistence and your willingness to work hard, every day, until you see movement. Then you work harder. You are not the victim of cosmic oversight.

Success isn’t a given to the lucky few; there are no automatic winners and automatic victims.

But we are enamored of victimization. It is appealing. It removes the responsibility from our shoulders. We can sigh and say, Oh well, it isn’t my fault. But if it isn’t your fault, my friend, then you really are powerless to fix it. Sure, there is resistance to action, to change, to forward movement, to positive choices. Resistance comes from everywhere: your family, your friends, the culture, the workplace, your peers, your church, your social life. The only Resistance that matters, though, the only one that can actually stop you, is what you allow to come from yourself.

We all have a calling, a work.

Destiny. Fate. Choice. Success. It’s what you burn with, what you hate hearing about when it isn’t about you, what you can’t stop thinking about, what you love, what you drift to while you’re waiting for the plane to take off or the game to start or your friend to call. Some of us have covered it deeply and can’t even call its name right now. We may have forgotten, but it is a temporary forgetting, one we walked into voluntarily. Somehow we forgot how to stop forgetting. We fixate on little things, details, methods, tradition, criticism, circumstance and let the most important things drift away.

The call isn’t lost.

The work, the sanctity, the dream, the draw: it is just buried. It is not my job to tell you what it is. You know it’s there. Keep walking toward something better, even if in little steps. Resist the Resistance. You will begin to uncover treasure.

Update (Wednesday): 20 minutes cardio (walking in park); 5 minutes stretch/abs.

Using the opportunities you have helps you to do something that otherwise you would find excuses not to do. That is most possibly the wordiest sentence possible and says the least but I am using a really loud keyboard right now and just typing more words than necessary because I like the sound it makes. Clack clack clatter.

Okay. Let’s try it again. I think what I want to say is this: You can either find a way to make do with what you have and reach your goal regardless of your circumstances, or you can make excuses and stay where you are, which is not where you want to be.

As Steven Pressfield says in his book The War of Art , “Casting yourself as a victim is the antithesis of doing your work. Don’t do it. If you’re doing it, stop.” (By the by, there are 118 customer reviews at Amazon on this book. Is that normal? 118? Wow.)

Resources: Go to your local library or bookstore and check out a copy of Pressfield’s book. It’s a great, creative kick-in-the-pants, and though it addresses the “creative life” most directly, the principles apply to any endeavor.

If you are a graphic designer or photographer, check out TheCreativeForum.com, which is “a Web-based community for the creative professional that will allow graphic designers, art directors, commercial photographers and other commercial artists to exchange creative ideas via posting of images and work samples for discussion and critique.” There you have it.

If you’re a writer, read this excellent article from Write to Done – which I don’t know much about, but I’m impressed with what I’ve seen; I think it’s a good find – on establishing the daily habit of writing. (It comes from the Zen Habits blogger, Leo Babauta, so it’s got to be good.)

Tip: It’s more important to be diligent in the small things, everyday, than to kill yourself trying to accomplish that one big thing. The small things add up to big things. Pick something you’ve been slacking on (time with your spouse, exercise, calling a friend, reading, cooking a good meal) and be diligent and excellent at that small thing. There will be big results. It’s just a matter of time + diligence.

Teach the wise, and they will be wiser. Teach the righteous, and they will learn more. Proverbs 9:9

And if you still haven’t figured out what you’re going to do for Valentine’s Day, go read Have a Better Valentine’s Day. It’s time we all moved past the been-there-done-that routine of dinner, movie, dancing… Get lively, people! Think outside the box! And do, please, whether blissfully single or wedded or somewhere in between,

have a happy (and better, and creative, and chocolate-ful) Valentine’s Day.