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The 3 C’s of Making Your Dreams a Reality: Creativity

Hello beautiful friends! How are you feeling today?

Just name the feeling with one word.

Today, I’m feeling calm.

It’s important to practice checking in with yourself and to be able to identify what emotion you are feeling in any given moment. This helps us to improve our self awareness and to step out of our thoughts enough to be able to work on generating more of the emotions that we desire.

So, I’m curious - what one emotion are you feeling right now? Are you feeling determined? Excited? Stressed? Maybe you’re feeling overwhelmed or anxious. Are you feeling happy? Grateful? Discouraged? Helpless?

Don’t judge how you’re feeling. Just step back and notice how you’re feeling in this given moment. Remember, there’s no place for judgment in the Jet Set Society. If you’re feeling anxious or stressed, don’t feel guilty about it - that will only make those feelings worse. Just casually observe how you’re feeling right now.

This is the Best Time to Make Your Dreams a Reality

Last week, I started a 3 part series on the podcast about what it takes to make your dreams a reality. It comes down to 3 C’s - Courage, Creativity, and Compassion. Last week in episode 7, I discussed the first C, which was Courage. If you’ve not yet checked that out, go ahead and give it a listen before or after this episode.

And some of you may believe that focusing on dreams right now is irresponsible or impossible, but I would like to challenge that thinking. Yes, these are unprecedented times, but right now, in 2020, many people are furloughed and laid off. People are trying to figure out what they want to do next. For many, this is the first time in years, maybe ever, that they have slowed down their life long enough to evaluate it.

And in this period of evaluation, you may remember some of those distant dreams that were unfulfilled. You may finally have the time now to act on those dreams. Maybe you want to do a 180 and start over. Maybe you want to finally write that book. Or get healthy once and for all. You may be finding yourself right now in a place where you’ve created a life that doesn’t feel like yours and you want to change it. Or maybe you’ve been taking your dreams for granted and putting them on the backburner.

I know I’ve certainly taken some things for granted. I didn’t realize how much I adored getting my hair blown out because I hate doing my own hair. I also didn’t realize how much I loved going out to dinner at a restaurant with friends. And now, as things are slowly opening back up again, I never want to take those things for granted ever again.

I don’t want to look back on this time where we’ve been in quarantine and maybe jobless and feel regret for not having done something meaningful during that time. And I don’t want that for you either.

Let’s use this unique time to work on our dreams. Let’s use this time to really make a difference in reaching our goals!

We Are All Capable of Being Creative

So with that, today, I’d like to talk about the second C needed to make your dream a reality, and that is Creativity.

And I can already hear you saying, “But Brittany, I don’t have a creative bone in my body. I’m not the creative type. I’m not an artist or a graphic designer or a singer or a dancer.”

That’s totally okay! Because the type of creativity that we are talking about today is the kind of creativity that makes you resourceful.

The definition of creativity is the ability to transcend traditional ideas, rules, patterns, relationships, or the like, and to create meaningful new ideas, forms, methods, interpretations, etc.

Even the seemingly least creative role, like say an accountant, can demonstrate creativity. That person may develop a new procedure at work. Maybe they are able to spot an inefficiency and make a process better. That’s creativity too!

So the first myth I need to bust as we talk about creativity is that not everyone is creative. That’s simply not true. We all have the capacity to be creative - we all have the ability to look at the world as it is today and find new and different ways to make it better.

Creativity is not a gift that you’re just born with or not. It’s a way of looking at the world. And when it comes to dream making, it’s especially important.

Creativity kicks into gear when doors close on you in the face of your dreams. Last week, we established that you will without a doubt face challenges as you set forth to make your dreams a reality. And it will take courage to face those challenges. Then it will take creativity to figure out what to do next. When a door closes, you will need to be resourceful to find that window.

Having creativity when dream making means that you take the initiative and take charge of your life. You don’t wait for the blueprint or the exact formula. You get ideas and you try them out. It’s about trial and error.

Here’s the thing - you may not know the ‘how’ yet but as long as you know your ‘why’ and your like it, that’s enough.

Although I’m not saying you have to be an artist, let’s take painting as an example. In high school, I always took art classes - I preferred painting over drawing. And I’m not saying I was amazing at it, but I loved painting because of how abstract I could make it. I loved blending the paint colors and seeing the textures.

When I was in my abstract paint classes, we never had a template. We were never given a formula for how to create the perfect painting. Even if we were all told to paint the same thing, every painting would look different. And that’s what it means to be creative. It’s about resourcefulness and originality. It’s about using your imagination again and again to see what works for you.

When you’re working on your dreams, it’s not the time to critique. Your art is not on display for others to comment or judge it. And I’m using the word ‘art’ loosely - I’m referring to art as anything new that you create for yourself. A new health regimen, a new website, a new business, a new relationship, a new perspective on money - it’s all art. And it’s not on display for critique.

Because at the end of the day, it’s not really about the final product. The best thing that will come out of making your dreams a reality is who you will become in the process.

Creativity is About Being Resourceful

It’s about doing the best you can with what you have in the moment; not waiting for someone to come along and give you the blueprint. It’s also not about complaining about what you don’t have. It’s about continuously looking for ways to make it better.

Take this very podcast for example. I know that it’s not professional quality. I’m making these recordings all by myself and I know very well that they could sound better in terms of audio quality. But I’m working with the resources that I have available today. I’m not complaining about how I don’t have an audio team to work with. I’m not waiting for someone to come along and sponsor me. I’m using my resourcefulness to move forward in my current circumstances.

So being creative means that we ask ourselves, “How can I make the best of this? What can I do in this moment to keep moving forward? What can I impact in my current circumstances?”

Maybe your dream is to get in shape but the gyms are closed right now. You’re not going to whine about how you can’t work out because you can’t go to the gym. Instead, you’re going to be creative, and use some food cans from the pantry as weights. Instead, you’re going to train along with a YouTube video.

Maybe your dream is to start a stationery business. You’re not going to complain about how you don’t know how to create your Etsy shop. Instead, you’re going to get online and watch video tutorials until you know what to do.

When we stop making excuses for ourselves and telling ourselves that there’s no way out or around, we are capable of amazing things. You’ll be astonished with how creative you really are when you are pressed to come up with alternatives and solutions.

It Takes Creativity to Overcome Discomfort

So after you’ve identified what you want and why you want it, change will need to come next. And change is uncomfortable. Why? Because our brains like to stay with what we know and with what makes us feel safe. It doesn’t like getting stretched and expanding. But we absolutely have to if we want to make our dreams a reality.

Facing that discomfort will require creativity. Discomfort and creativity don’t really sound all that related, do they? But they are. Overcoming discomfort will require creativity.

No one likes feeling uncomfortable, right? We naturally prefer comfort, safety, and security. But in order to move past the discomfort, we will have to demonstrate creativity. We will have to use our imagination to look past the discomfort and see who we can become after we’ve overcome it. It’s looking for clever ways to face the discomfort then move past it.

Without creativity, we see the world exactly how it is today, without any idea or hope for improvement. We focus on what we have in this moment, and more often we focus on what we don’t have in this moment.

But when you activate your creativity, you start seeing the potential for how things could be. You can begin to appreciate what’s in your now, and work to optimize your gifts and strengths to its fullest potential.

Using creativity engages our imagination. Practice visualizing yourself already having accomplished what you set forth to do. Then reverse engineer it. What did your future self do to get there? What did she stop doing? Who did she seek help from? What resources did she use?

When you imagine yourself in the future, as the woman who’s already living out her dream jet set life, you’ll be able to figure out what you have right now that you can use to start moving in that direction.

Don’t get caught up in the master plan. You likely won’t know every step needed to get to where you want to be. All you need to know is your next step. Just focus on that next step - one step at a time so that you can move in the direction of your dream.

Take my dream for example of reaching 20,000 women in the next four years to share with them the mission of the jet set life. I don’t have a formula for how I’m going to reach that many women. But what I am doing is using my creativity and resourcefulness to try new things and learn how to best reach my audience, whether that’s through the blog, podcast, Instagram, or elsewhere.

(On a side note, if you haven’t started following me on Instagram yet, get over there and connect with me! You can find me at @thejetsetblonde.)

Summary

Courage and creativity is exactly what we need to be demonstrating in uncertain and confusing times like these. We can choose to live in fear and anxiety about what’s going on in the world today, or we can build up our courage and creativity. It’s your choice.

After you know what you want and why you want it, you’ll first need the courage to go after it, then you’ll need the creativity to look around you and use what you have at your disposal to start moving in the direction of your dream.

Once you’ve aligned those two abilities, you’re ready to start taking action in making your dreams a reality. Then, when you start taking action, you’ll need a big dose of compassion. So that’s what we’ll discuss next week as we wrap up this 3-part series on making your dreams a reality.