The One Thing Anyone Can Learn (and Do) to Kickstart Their Creativity

When I first decided I wanted to write, I picked up the advice that I should carry a notebook with me and make notes about what I saw. It was great advice, and I’m lucky to have heard it and taken to it. Possibly it’s more important than direct training as a writer. If you aren’t paying attention to the world around you, what are you even going to write about?

However, it’s not a direct line from action to beautiful resort. The notes I took those first ten years did not transform me into a writer, or give me great stuff to write about.

I’ve reviewed those first notes hoping to find diamonds in the rough, but I’ll I found was the rough. Those notes stink. Still, it set me on a path and taught me the great lesson need for creativity.

Taking notes taught me to pay attention.

My desire to take notes forced me to pay attention. I looked at people, listened, and eavesdropped as necessary. I tried to commit their strange hair, bad shirts, and weird accents to memory for later notetaking lest I get caught writing down how funny I thought they looked.

If you haven’t guessed yet, I was a cocky smartass in my youth and was quick to laugh at others. I saw difference as strangeness, and I thought strange was funny. (It’s not.) Still, I was paying attention.

The thing is, by paying attention to the people in your world, you start to notice how their world works and, eventually, how the world works. You see their mistakes, their frustrations, and the abuses they suffer. You see their magnality and their kindness.

By studying the trees, you might eventually see the forest.

Once I could see the forest, I began to understand how the world works. I saw how petty vengeance can sour relationships, or jealousy ruin your day. I saw how lust or desire could knock a person off their path and destroy their day, and stupidity could ruin a life. Most of all, I saw how people who don’t pay attention to the world around them miss golden opportunities every day.

The real upside about paying attention is that you have a chance to help others and to feel their pain, which can lead to deeper relationships. You may not want to do this with complete strangers, but at least you can read people a little quicker from having seen certain behaviors (and made note of them) and avoid problems or distractions.

I’ll leave it as an exercise for home how your own problems or distractions with others may have been avoided had you noticed something sooner.

Once you are at that level of paying attention and understanding, it better equips you to write about what you’ve seen. People don’t want to read about a forest; they want to read about the trees and their struggle to survive. The story you tell has to set in the context of the forest, but the good stuff is in the individuals dealing with crap.

I’m talking about writing, but paying attention applies to all creative endeavors. Van Gogh captured the essence of people when he painted portraits. He also noticed wild things like turbulence in the atmosphere when he painted Starry Night.

The key thing is to pay attention to the world around you and spend a few moments contemplating what you saw.

Then share what you’ve seen and tells us, “Behold! Here is this thing,” and tell us in a way that gets us to look.

I completed my first course on creativity, Awaken Your Creative Abundance and I need your help to test it. If you’re interested in helping, I’m offering it for free in the hopes that you’ll check it out and give me feedback on the entire process: the sales page, the checkout process, and the course itself. Use the coupon “FREE2CREATE” to get a full discount.

P.S. The image is a portrait of Elizabeth Beltzhoover Mason by Gilbert Stuart, courtesy of the Cleveland Museum of Art