I found the following list in an old 2013 writing file tonight. I apologize to the author. I did not write down your name, website address, or any identifying information. I tried typing in the title “11 Tips for Creativity” and found several articles, but none contained this content. I’m so sorry. I will be better in the future at recording author and website names.

However, I do want to share this information because I think it is not only helpful but also true. The tips only get better the further down you read.

Thank you, anonymous author, for these words. I needed to read them tonight and suspect others might benefit as well.

Keep on, keepin’ on, my friends. Life is short. Watch a fifteen-month-old and follow their lead. They’ll teach you a lot about embracing life (and creativity) with no regrets.

“You cannot teach a man anything. You can only help him discover it within himself.” —Galileo Galilei

11 Tips for Creativity

1. Try looking through a different lens — lots of them — both figuratively and literally. Try to see with your eyes, your entire being, your soul, and not just with your mind.
2. Remember the golden rule: there are no rules. Define them, rewrite them, play with them, and burn each one as you go. There is no such thing as failure or unnecessary boundaries when you are creating.
3. No one is looking. Stop worrying about what the world is going to think. Just do. Free yourself of inhibitions as best you can. You can’t force creative possession, but you can loosen the grip of what holds you back from your fullest expression. Eventually something will budge — even if only for a breathtaking moment. Live that moment as though it were a lifetime.
4. No matter what you’re doing — keep going. Never stop. Keep looking and searching, even if you have no clue what you seek. Start again. Start over a million times.
5. Find a muse. Find a million of them. Choose inanimate and animate, simple and complex, ordinary and unusual. Explore something you know nothing about. Listen to what it’s whispering when no one else is paying attention. Spend a day seeing the world through another artist’s eyes.
6. Be unconventional. Combine unlikely pairs — colors, shapes, words, feelings, sounds. Let contrast teach you something. Don’t be afraid to step beyond the cage.
7. Do something every day that scares you. Stretch yourself. Step beyond your comfort zone. Notice how discomfort reshapes you — and how that reshaping becomes art.
8. Use your entire body. Sway. Be still. Become a wild animal, a cloud, the sun. Use the greatest instrument you have to express this life — you.
9. Let go. Even a little. Explore the possibility that you do not have to control everything.
10. When it gets uncomfortable — stay. When it gets hard — stay. When you want to leave — stay.
11. Keep showing up. To your canvas. To your novel. To your memoir. To your mat. To your shoes. To your forest. To your craft. Keep showing up.

“If you hear a voice within you say ‘you cannot paint,’ then by all means paint, and that voice will be silenced.” —Vincent Van Gogh

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