16 Tips to Boost your Creative Confidence
This is my personal creativity manifesto that I would like to share with you. It's a living document that changes as I develop and grow as a creative. It's where I keep all my best practice tips that I've learnt over the years working in the creative industries and advice I often give to others.
Creating a manifesto has helped to keep all this learned wisdom in one place. Also, it is a promise to me to prioritise my creativity. I think of it as my foundation stone or the building blocks to my creative practice. It's useful to reference for times when I get stuck, frustrated or uninspired and I have it pinned up in my workspace just for those occasions as a gentle reminder.
I would highly recommend making one for yourself.
If you want to, it is helpful to think about what you find challenging at this moment, maybe it's finding focus, inspiration or motivation and make a list of things that would help solve these problems.
What is a Manifesto?
“A manifesto is a public declaration of intentions, opinions, objectives, or motives, usually issued by a government, sovereign or organisation”
Here are some questions that you might want to ask yourself to get ideas:
What do you need to stop doing? The bad habits that you fall into are often your procrastinators.
What would work well within your lifestyle and you could realistically commit to?
What's your personality, are you an extrovert or introvert? As this will impact on the environment you would like to create for yourself.
What drives you to create? We all do this for different reasons, what works for one person might not be the right thing for you?
What's working? Do more if that and stop doing what isn't.
I hope you find the below tips useful and an inspiration to make your own. Understanding what helps your creativity flow is really important to be a thriving creative.
Here’s my 16 Tips
Remember practice makes progress and a little progress is better than none.
Find one thing, no matter how small, that can you do today to keep the creativity flowing.
Leave a piece of work unfinished so you have a starting point for next time.
Create a space and vibe that enhances your creativity.
Stop copying or comparing yourself to others, it means you don't have belief in yourself and your capabilities.
Have inspiration on hand or pinned up for when you get stuck.
Remember 'why' you create for times when you think you are ‘not good enough’ and need the motivation to keep going.
Be open to new ideas and allow them to develop before discounting them completely.
If you start to feel uncomfortable or have fear of making a mistake, just sit with the feeling... it will soon pass.
When blocked or uninspired, go do something different, like visit a gallery or museum, work from a cafe or a walk in nature.
Guard your creative time zealously and make sure other people respect this too.
Find time to be unfocused every day to give room for inspiration to visit and capture your ideas as soon as they do.
Be mindful of negative self-talk as it's fear holding you back in your comfort zone.
Make the experience playful as creativity is born from curiosity and play.
Forget about perfection as it stifles creativity and only leads to dissatisfaction.
Slow down, be present and TRUST in yourself.
I am curious to know what you would add as this is by no means the ultimate list. Please feel free to use it as inspiration for creating your own.
Below is a poster that you can print out at home, just click on the image to download.
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