Two years ago I tapped into my creativity after rediscovering myself during the Empty Nest years. I had sort of let that part of myself diminish due to the busyness of life and concentrating on family and work. I rediscovered and embraced my love of the written word and learned a few things along the way about creativity and creative people.

Key Traits of Creative People

One of the key traits of creative people is that they’re risk takers. They’re not afraid to put something new out into the world that might be laughed at. They don’t mind being dismissed as crazy. If you want to be a more creative person, this is a personality trait that you need to foster in yourself, and it’s easy to do. If you think back to your childhood, your creativity probably came fairly natural. Your imagination ran wild. But somewhere along the way some folks lose touch with the creativity side of yourself.
Here’s how you get back into the creativity groove.

First, take a second to consider that without risks there are no rewards. You may have a few failures but if you can keep your failures from discouraging you, the next time you try might be a raging success. If you have what you think are good ideas but you’re afraid to take the plunge and put them out into the world, here are some ideas for changing your mindset.

The Worst That Can Happen

What’s the worst that could happen? You might face criticism or doubts, but that’s all. In fact, you might face constructive feedback that leads you to a better idea. Perhaps some part of your idea can be used. You’re not going to be ridiculed or discredited. I know in the blogging world we think that everyone should love everything that we read. But, reality check.  Everyone isn’t.  Even if you are narrowing your focus of your writing to your narrow niche, you still aren’t going to please everyone.

Rewards Matter More than Risks

On the other hand, what if your idea is the one that gets chosen? This is the great reward for taking that risk. One way to nurture your inner risk taker is to focus on success rather than failure. If you focus on all the great things your idea could bring, it’s impossible to not put it out there.

Risk-Taking Takes Practice

Like everything else that you want to be good at, risk-taking takes practice. You have to put your ideas out there over and over again, and eventually it feels like a regular everyday thing. It’s just like getting up on stage. You can tame the worst stage fright if you have enough stage time. For folks just starting blogs, your article writing takes practice. You just have to keep doing it and each post becomes easier than the first.

The Value of Failure

When it comes to creativity, both success and failure are valuable. Success is valuable for obvious reasons and failure is valuable because you can learn from it. But doing nothing at all offers no value. The only way to truly fail is to not try.

It’s Not the End of the World

It’s scary to do something for the first time, especially when you feel that those around you are seasoned pros. But the first time you put your ideas out there, you’ll realize that even if they’re shot down, you survived. Nothing bad happened. This gives you the confidence to try again next time.

Creativity is about risk-taking and it just takes practice. You’re not bungee jumping or climbing Mount Everest. Sometimes when you are posting an article for the world to see, it may seem as though you are jumping out of the plane and free falling. But, see it for the truly small, ordinary thing that it is, and make it a habit.

I’m going to be sharing more about creativity as I get everything ready for my new passion and  journey towards my “Rat Race Be Gone” mentality as I’m launching my new project,

Hugs and feathers from the nest~~()~~

Kim Steadman is the COOP (Chief Online Operating Person) for The Re-Feathered Nest. A place of encouragement for moms entering the Empty Nest Zone who find they need to RePurpose and ReDesign their lives now that the kids have flown the coop. Kim can be found on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/TheRefeatheredNest and on Google+ at +Kim.