Creativity Is a Practice of Diving Into Creator Mode Of What Turns You On
We have creativity within us but we lose our sense of play time as we grow old. We forget to play and start seeing life as a serious thing. We start walking through life with a carrot stuck in our butt while chasing the carrot on a stick. Always having a face of struggle or faking a face of contentment.
We’re meant to build and create but ultimately we end up like the Movie Matrix stuck in a pod used as a human battery to keep the machines running.
There is nothing wrong with work or having a 9 to 5. Creative work requires creation and action. But if we do it for a check only we lose our purpose, and our work feels empty. Without a sense of mission or purpose, we start entering into cycles of anxiety, depression, and mid-life crises.
Entrepreneurship can be idealized, too. It’s often portrayed as a glamorous way to create wealth. However, entrepreneurship is also risky and challenging. It can also keep you in a rut, and you end up creating your prison when the purpose is freedom.
Ultimately, though, I do believe we all should be entrepreneurs, even in some sort of small capacity, depending on our desired lives. To me, entrepreneurship equals being an independent and independent creative creator where there are no limits.
Living creatively is living the best life now, not in the past or future. It’s living life by choice.
How can you live your best life now and what does that really look like? It’s being super specific and intentional with your words and actions about your desired outcome. It’s playing the game of life for you and not for the TikTok clock that depletes the most important assets you have: Time and Energy.
Always think: Is it Fun, Is it Fulfilling, Does it Make Me Happy, Does It Bring Me Freedom?
How many times have you done things for the sake of doing them? Saying yes to things or people you know brings no substance or fulfillment to your life. Isn’t it time that you grabbed life by the cojones or ovaries and started taking action to create the life you want, to start finding creative ways to live life to your full potential?
Creativity For Problem Solving
We’re often the most creative when we’re tired and during stressful situations. You’re brain is in survival mode trying to figure out the best outcome or way out. But, when our goals are our priorities but not emergencies it becomes hard to be creative and disciplined and we tend to procrastinate. We start solving day-to-day emergencies instead of putting work into our long-term goals.
Burn the boats: This will be based on each individual and responsibilities. Don’t make an excuse of why you can’t based on your life and find a way to burn the boats where you’ll have no choice but to do the work.
For me, it was to find a better job with a better schedule and better pay and I also wanted to travel outside of the country. By this time I wasn’t my brothers’ full-time guardian and didn’t depend on me as much anymore.
I decided to spend as little money as possible for the next four months and no matter how much money I had I would buy a ticket to Japan and leave for two weeks. It was a difficult decision as I had no plans for my next job, just enough for the trip, and still have my car payment and insurance.
After four months I quit my job and bought the ticket. I knew that it was the only way to finally take the step and travel for the first time alone for two weeks.
Once I came back I moved out of my old place, reached out to my previous landlord, and moved to a very small room for $600. Yes, I did get super lucky but the luck was created by putting in the work, asking, and building genuine relationships.
I applied to many many jobs and contacted as many people as I could for any leads on potential jobs. I ended up borrowing some money from my brothers as now they were working full-time. If it came to worse I would live in my car and do Uber or Doordash.
I now pay way less for rent as having a big place for now is not my priority. I was also able to get a way better-paying job in the railroad industry with way better benefits and closer to home.
It did take me five months after quitting my job to recover and I almost ran out of money. Yes, I could have planned it better but complacency kills growth. It was NOW or never.
Spend Creatively
Spend on your priorities, don’t spend on things that are out of impulse but bring no substance to your life. This is my humble opinion but follow the principles of Dave Ramsey and the spending philosophy of Ramit Sethi on spending on the things that you love.
Both of these financial coaches often don’t agree but take what genuinely works for you to become financially free.
To me, Dave Ramsey’s philosophy builds character, and self-discipline with your money, and when it comes to the worst financial situations his philosophy to get out of debt and rise again is the best way to go.
Ramit Sethi’s philosophy of “Spend EXTRAVAGANTLY on the things you love, as long as you cut costs mercilessly on the things you don’t” is the best way to make the best out of your money. We tend to work for the future but never spend the money to live now.
Have a DAMN Life To-Do List!
No matter how small the goal, habit, and mission is DAMN write it down!
Don’t write a year resolution. Write a life to-do list!
On Google Docs, a spreadsheet, or by hand write down everything that you want to learn, experience, achieve, new habits you want to build, financial goals, trips, getting rid of debt, a better job, relationships, reading more, be more social, literally anything that you want to experience in life.
Based on your current finances and time look at your list and choose something you can afford to do now, really want to do, or that you know would make a tremendous impact in your life.
But try and DAMN IT write it down. It doesn’t have to be specific. Once you choose what you want to do out of your list you can get very specific. Heck, once you start doing it you might realize it’s not what you actually want to do but now you can cross it out and get it out of your head (one less regret). Or you might pivot to something similar but better. Which is why is not good to be so anal about having everything ready before starting.
The thing is to START.
As you start to accomplish some of your list items you will gain confidence and clarity. You will have more control over where and how you want to spend your life.
Don’t be a human battery! Anything that you do contributes to the movement of the machines/society we live in. We all play a part in it and it’s not a bad thing. But, play the game your way, and create the life that brings light to you and everything around you.
Light speed my friend!
