Retirees’ Creative Reinvention Day 13: And once you’ve made that decision…

finger pointing to the viewer's right

In my last post, I explored, with the help of Jon Acuff, the decision creators must make every day.

Now that you’ve made a decision to create [and possibly to share some of your work], you might saunter further into some unexplored, or at least dormant, traits.

Dani Shapiro, author of Still Writing: The Perils and Pleasures of a Creative Life,  says: [Note: For every mention of writing, plug in your own creative endeavor.]

“The writing life requires courage, patience, persistence, empathy, openness, and the ability to deal with rejection. It requires the willingness to be alone with oneself. To be gentle with oneself. To look at the world without blinders on. To observe and withstand what one sees. To be disciplined, and at the same time, take risks. To be willing to fail — not just once, but again and again, over the course of a lifetime. “Ever tried, ever failed,” Samuel Beckett once wrote. “No matter. Try again. Fail again. Fail better.” It requires what the great editor Ted Solotoroff once called endurability.”

For a more complete discussion, click on over to Maria Popova’s Brain Pickings.

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Thanks for reading and stay vigilant for opportunities to stretch your and flex those creative muscles.

 

Retirees’ Creative Reinvention Day 12: Make a decision…

decision signs

Jon Acuff, author of Finish: Give Yourself the Gift of Done, recently posted about a decision we make every day. He uses a stage–the place where we step forward–as his metaphor.

Two of his main points:

  • “Your stage might be different, but we all have one…Maybe for you it’s sending an email to a literary agent.”

  • “The exit is easier. It’s faster and more comfortable and a lot safer.”

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Thanks for reading and stay vigilant for opportunities to stretch your and flex those creative muscles.

 

Retirees’ Creative Reinvention Day 11: Move past imperfection.

Buddy snow nose reduced

This post is especially relevant to us as beginners in our creative pursuits.

I like this medium.com post by Thomas Oppong.

Title: Make Life Easier on Yourself by Accepting “Good Enough.” Don’t Pursue Perfection, Pursue Progress

Highlights:

— “In other words, instead of pushing yourself to an impossible “perfect,” and therefore getting nowhere, accept “good.”

— “Perfection is a pursuit of the worst in ourselves, the part that tells us that nothing we do will ever be good enough…”

— “The real world doesn’t reward perfectionists.
It rewards people who get things done.”

Stick with this post for the other valuable quotes from smart people like Brené Brown and Seth Godin.

 

View story at Medium.com

 

Retirees’ Creative Reinvention Day 10: Laugh at yourself along the way.

Quote of the day:

“After a few more minutes of daydreaming about how fabulous I could become, I look down at the heading on my paper: Janey’s Reinvention Plan. It appears lonely at the top of the page. I should probably add some bullets beneath, but I’ve never been much of a list maker.”
― J.C. Patrick, The Reinvention of Janey

Thanks for reading and stay vigilant for opportunities to stretch your thinking.

 

Retirees’ Creative Reinvention Day 8: Find Your Creative Touchstones

word cloud including words touchstone dependable reliableYesterday, I shared a quote from Albert Einstein about the power of irrational thinking.

In my search for a resource to support that quote, I ran across How to Become More Creative and Free Your Mind by Chad Grills.

Sure, I’ve heard and tried some of these techniques and strategies, but Grills does such a nice job of reframing these ideas, and adding new notions, that I immediately shared it with two groups and emailed it to three different accounts.

Along with books from Austin Kleon and Steven Pressfield, I would have to classify this post as a ‘creative touchstone’, a go-to resource I can return to for inspiration.

What are your creative touchstones? And if you don’t have any, launch a full-scale hunt right now! [Or at least after coffee and decadent treat.]

Thanks for reading and stay vigilant for opportunities to stretch your thinking.

 

Retirees’ Creative Reinvention Day 7: Give yourself permission to stray.

stylized photo of Albert Einstein

A favorite quote from Albert Einstein:

“I never made one of my discoveries through the process of rational thinking.”

 

Thanks for reading and stay vigilant for opportunities to stretch your thinking.