Tag: work

Gratitude as a source of Creativity

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On the radio the other day the talk show hosts were talking about “when it’s ok to lie” one of the times they brought up “When someone makes you a gift you don’t really like.” This thought stuck with me. Often when I think of others that I want to give something to or that I want to thank, my mind first goes to something I can create for them. Don’t get me wrong, often there is the perfect thing for someone that I can buy from a local store or Amazon. That being said you can see my gratitude or caring when I don’t just give you something that is prepackaged. Yet with all of my good intention, time and effort I have seen the utter disappointment or the lack of use of in respect to that created gift. So even if you lie to me, I’ll probably figure out that you didn’t like the gift. Somehow that doesn’t stop me!

Today I was struck with the creative itch when I was questioning how to express gratitude. This week is Teacher Appreciation Week, and my child goes to a great school with so many great teachers and staff members. Last year I gave small thank you gifts to her primary classroom teachers. A year later I have become more aware and realized that it is not just the three in her classroom that impact her day positively every day. I have come to realize that there are people in her school who I only know by sight who know her and make a difference in her day. I also know that they are supported by an even larger team. Some staff may never interact with my kiddo or me, yet they are an important part of the school community. Unfortunately, we do not have an endless supply of monetary resource to give something special to every single staff member this week. Yet I still want each one to know that they are appreciated.

Driving past my favorite art store I was drawn to go in and look at their extensive pen collection! I was able to come up with 60+ awesome pens that I thought were fun, functional and unusual. The challenge with a pile of pens is that by themselves, they really don’t say thank you. It’s as much about the presentation and the sentiment included as it it about the physical pen. For this I knew I could use some styrofoam and a note. After some experimenting, paper, paint and floral wire I had written a word I associate with teachers on each pen and built this funky pen holder:

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I also added this note:

Hello “School” Staff,

Thank you for all you do for each and every student and family at “School”.

Please pick a pen that is fun or has a word you identify with as a small token of out gratitude.

Happy Teacher Appreciation Week!

It’s silly and it lacks refinement, I would never expect to buy this in a store, yet I hope it says,” I appreciate you and in return I took my time and effort to create this for you.”

For me this was a gift of an opportunity to create something new and different that I had never made before. I got the chance to daydream and create. I might build it a bit differently if tasked to make the same thing again. Personally I really enjoyed the time I could give to creating something out of gratitude.

What happens if someone doesn’t really like this gift or thinks of the pen as a crappy thank you? Well it is likely they won’t take a pen or will take it and forget about it. Is that different than the cookie that another parent brought in? Not really.  In this particular situation I know that the 60+ staff members will have 60 different reactions to this gift. I hope many will take a pen and accept the gratitude I am trying to express.

As for myself, I will now watch and see what the reactions to this funky pen holder and its intentions are. Maybe next time I’ll go back to something off the shelf or maybe this will be a tiny bit of inspiration and experience that I will draw upon next time I feel the urge to show my gratitude.

What gives you that creative inspiration?

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Recently, I have felt uninspired, ready to do the status quo, complacent….  or in other words not very creative! This is a very strange place for me I have frequently and actively chosen to follow my passions, trusting that, by following my passion I am on right path and everything will work out. To this point in my life that has been true. When I am passionate about something I cannot help but to talk about it,  strive to do more, and come up with creative solutions. Like everything in life with time, comes change, and my passions have changed. I cannot pinpoint the moment when it happened, nor can I describe in words what the shift is to.

So I have been thinking a lot….

  • Did I choose to stop following my passion?
  • What is my passion?
  • If I can’t name it or describe it, how can I do it?
  • Have I settled into my default self?

This idea of default self really has me thinking? When I say default, is there a place or stride that I just get into when there is nothing else that inspires me? Yes, I think we all have this default space. I am starting to realize that mine is quiet, passive and task oriented. Another characteristic of my default self is a need to keep things close, I don’t really want to spend time with lots of people, I just want to stay to small social circles. Let me be clear, my default self isn’t sad or unhappy, it just isn’t the inspired person I think of myself as when I am at my best.  If my default self is not my “Best Self” then what is?  How do I re-ignight my passion to jumpstart my super productive self, the self that I see accomplishing the lifetime goals I have?

First, is this default self really showing up in every aspect of my life or is there one specific area I can identify the default is creeping in? I think it is safe to say that this lack of umph is not a universal malady in my life, instead it is very focused. I am currently my default self in my work life. For better or worse we spend almost a 1/3 of our adult lives focused on “Work”. That is a huge chunk of our time!  Even with a fairly flexible job where I worked from home I have found that while I may be able to use daytime hours to do life things, work is still there, maybe evenmore since my desk is in my house. Two weeks ago, I would have told you that I was in an ok place with work, maybe not my dream job, but it was fulfilling all of my basic needs as an employee and as a member of my family. One week ago I was told the company is closing and my services are no longer needed. Honestly, I’m ok with that, maybe somewhere deep inside I am relieved.  I accept this opportunity to refocus myself….. What do I want to do????? Before I start my search for something new, it is time to ponder my passions, my strengths and my weaknesses that I will bring to the next step of my work life. There is a lot to consider, the first question I am going to look at is “What truly wakes you up each day?” or asked a different way: “What gives you that creative inspiration, that you love so much?” Hopefully this will help me move past the default work self and help me find my next opportunity for my best work self!

What gives you that creative inspiration? If you have an answer to this question I would love to hear what ignites you. Leave a comment below and let me know!

Creativity in my “normal” life

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After being a theater major in college and post grad, I was convinced that if I wasn’t doing theater or something “Artsy” that I wasn’t being creative. Fast forward almost 10 years, I haven’t done one bit of theater since I left grad school, so where does that leave me? Forced to recognize all of the ways that I am being creative while living a “normal” life.

At various times I have been creative in very specific areas of said normal life. For example, one year for Christmas my husband and I wanted to share our yummy recipes with our friends and family and decided to make them spice mixes with recipe cards. This gift idea turned into a 3 year company that we blended, bottled and sold mixed spices at our local farmers markets. The creative parts were fun. For us creativity came while answering all of the questions:

  • What kind of bottle should we sell our spices in?
  • What really is a Cajun spice?
  • How many times are we going to eat read beans and rice to get the flavors right?
  • What should our logo be?
  • How do you pack the car with all of the things you need to set up a temporary shop?
  • How do you sample spices?
  • Should we sell online?

And on and on and on. Do all of these sound like questions that any new business owner might ask? I hope so, building a business is creating something that didn’t exist before. Yes there have been and continue to be many spice companies in the world, none were ours. To create something is a process. Kevin Ashton says “Creating is not magic, but work” When we started creating with food and spices we accidentally created a business. This company lasted 3 years before we got bored. Blending, bottling and selling became a simple, yet an uninteresting process. We still love cooking yummy foods and now we have such a better understanding of how to whip a meal together and balance the flavors, the knowledge and experience we learned allows us to create new meals easier.

Not every creative adventure in my “normal” life has turned into a business, many have been fun ways to spend time with friends and family. Notably, we don’t host many parties but we are known for our annual pumpkin carving party. I love this party, not only because I think Halloween is the best holiday of the year, it is the one time a year I challenge all of my friends to create in the form of carving pumpkins with sharp things! Every year someone “forgets to bring a pumpkin”, or says ” I’m not the creative type” and of course this is a challenge to me. I am prepared for these excuses and I always buy a few extra pumpkins, we have amassed a carving knife collection of all shapes and sizes and multiple years in a row I have gone down the halloween aisle at my local store to get the discounted carving kits for next year. So when someone shows up with an excuse, they are quickly met with all of the tools they need to carve a pumpkin. There have been some epic pumpkins, and there have been some that you have to squint and turn you head sideways to figure out what the carver had intended. In all cases we have a fun party where everyone pushed themselves to create something.

My creativity isn’t limited to defined projects. A few months ago I was proud when I identified that my daughter was struggling with our day to day because she doesn’t have all of the details I have in my brain. Several art sessions later we now have a system of creating a weekly calendar where we draw out what is going to happen for the week. She loves this, not only can I tell her what I know we are going to do or who is going to visit, she can help me fill in the activity times by telling me what she wants to do.  In this way we create our week plan together.

I enjoy my creativity most when it starts as an idea, and it takes shape through research, conversations, attempts and fails. Currently, I am mulling over a costume idea for my 2 year old. I haven’t really begun to dig in yet. I have an idea – its an animal. I have done some online research of what it looks like. I have sketched some ideas. I am identifying my constraints. I cannot say if I will go through with this idea yet, at the same time I love having an idea percolate.

Without theater, I no longer have a specific space and time built into what I do everyday, I am still able to use my creativity skills. My creativity permeates various facets of what I do from working to being a mom and spending time with friends and family.  My creativity isn’t something that just happens, I have to try to create something new. So while I agree with Ashton, creativity is work, it is also the way of working that I enjoy most in my “normal” life.