An Overachiever’s Guide – Rediscovering Your Creativity

Am I creative? No, I’m not creative. I’m not artsy so therefore I can’t be creative...

Like Heather (An Overachiever's Guide To Breaking The Rules: How To Let Go Of Perfect and Live Your Truth), because I'm not artsy, I believed that I did not have a creative bone in my body. 

But also, like Heather, I have somewhat recently discovered that I am in fact creative. I’ve learned and acknowledged that being artsy isn’t the only path to creativity. 

I’m not really sure why we were both conditioned to think that creativity can only be found in the arts. Guess it’s another one of those subtle societal conditioning things. Oh the joys of societal conditioning!

No matter where it came from, it’s time for it to die. Because everyone is creative. 

With Heather’s help I rediscovered (and accepted) my creative side. 

I looked for the evidence that points away from creativity and points towards creativity. And as you will see below, my list is quite lopsided!

Not creative - 

Can't draw, can’t dance, definitely cannot think and speak on my feet, did I mention I can’t draw? 



Creative -

I come up with solutions that people think aren’t possible

I can easily connect 2 seemingly unrelated processes

I see challenges differently 

I can ‘see’ digital processes

I can explain and show those processes in an easy to understand way

I easily create useable documentation for complicated processes

I create custom afghans patterns! (who does that?!)

Problem solving

Love puzzles

Cooking with limited ingredients (what’s in my pantry right now?!)

I took a jewelry class in 9th grade and someone asked if they could buy the necklace I created! That might even tip me towards the artsy scale!

I plan fun group travel trips and with those trips create keepsake books for everyone

Writing (I always used to say I was a terrible writer, and that I hate writing. Now, I'm finding that it brings me a lot of joy and satisfaction).

I’m guessing that my creative list will continue to grow, while my non-creative list will probably decrease.

WE ARE ALL CREATIVE.

It is not always easy for all of us to see our creativity, especially overachievers. As Heather reminded me, overachievers want to be good at everything that we do, so therefore we do not consider ourselves creatively successful unless we’re one of the best at said creative thing (i.e. Puzzles, we have to be a world-renowned puzzle putter-together before we can claim puzzling as our own). 

But we don’t have to be the best, we don’t even have to be good at it for it to bring us joy and pull our creative juices from us. 

We need to let go of the need for it to be good. No one cares if you’re good or bad at something. Get over it!

I'm ready to let my creative wings expand and bask in the joy and happiness of being free!  Are you?

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