The Joy of Creating – Nate Turner

 

My wife and I have a good friend who is an architect. It’s one of the coolest jobs in the world where you get to express your joy of creating. Think about it. You go to work, you sit in an office, and from your chair you input your ideas into a CAD program. You create amazing pictures. Now, if that were the end of the story, you would still have some pretty cool pictures, but it gets better. Your pictures are sent to the client, and if the client is happy with them they then send them to their builders. The builders move some dirt, lay a foundation, put up some beams, frame out the walls and, viola, you have a building.

I know I missed a few steps in there somewhere, but at the end of the day, our friend can get on a plane, fly around the world, and see the buildings she created on her computer. She designs truly stunning structures. I am sure my friend doesn’t like every step in the process, but there is the joy of creating in the work. There is joy in seeing what you dreamed become reality.

Now, what about you? What do you create? How do you create? What do you find in the joy of creating?

Whether you are a professional creative or professional parent, you have creative potential. You have innovative ideas somewhere in you. I’m not sure why you have never tapped into them, but something is holding you back. Sometimes it’s fear. Sometimes it’s time. Sometimes it’s apathy. Whatever it is, I believe you can unleash that potential today.

Here are 4 simple steps to releasing your potential, so you can begin seeing the joy of creating, today.

1. Find Your Medium

I believe everyone is creative somewhere and somehow and with something. Most of us don’t just start life knowing exactly how we are built to be creative. We have to try out some different means to being creative. Maybe you’re an artist. Maybe you’re a wordsmith. Maybe you’re a scientist. Maybe you’re an organizer. There is creativity in every one of those mediums. If you don’t hit the right medium immediately, don’t give up. Try until you find your passion and potential will show up.

2. Pour Out Your Ideas

Sometimes you just need to dump your brain. You need times where you just let everything out on paper. Other times you might use audio dictation when you are driving. Still other times, you might draw pictures. If you’re more of an organization minded person, I encourage you to draw pictures all the more. A few years back, I read Dan Roam’s, “Back of the Napkin” and was convinced of the need for pictures in pouring out ideas. I have sketches in my notebooks that will never make sense until the product is finished, but that’s the point. The ideas don’t have to make sense, at least not yet. In this moment they are moving from your head to paper. At the end of the day, it just takes the right idea to get your brain working in the right direction.

3. Organize Your Thoughts

Now that you have dumped everything out of your head, begin to organize your thoughts. Stick like things together. Allow the patterns to emerge from the mess. Your thoughts aren’t totally disconnected, so connect the dots until you find the right ideas to bring into focus. This process may take 30 minutes, or it may take 30 days. Innovation never fully happens in a day. Innovation rarely happens by accident. You will create something better if you take the time to organize your ideas.  Out of the mess will form something good, something you can work with, something innovative. It is your creative potential in a form that has the potential to become reality.

4. Take the First Step

Finally, do something. Don’t leave the ideas on paper. Take the first step. Make it simple. No matter what happens, just don’t sit there. If you don’t take action, you will always wonder.

 

So, I ask again. What about you? What must you create? Where do you find the joy of creating? Where are you in the process? What is your first step, your next step?