Hi everyone! Welcome back to Lavendaire.
It's Aileen.
Today I'm going to share 12 habits of successful creatives.
And this video is for myself as much as it is for you,
because lately I've been in a creative funk.
I haven't had as much inspiration or motivation to create,
so these are just things I want to remind myself to keep doing,
to keep my head in the game, to keep the momentum going, and just be a better creator.
Today's video is in partnership with Skillshare, which is my favorite online learning platform
so I'll talk about it later.
But if you're interested, I have a link right here where
the first 500 people will get Skillshare Premium for just $0.99.
The first habit of successful creatives is that they create consistently.
They have a routine and stick to that routine for creating, whether it's creating every day
every morning, every evening, or even once or twice a week.
They have a set schedule.
They schedule in time to create and that's how they get work done.
The main reason for this is because when you create consistently, you get a lot of practice,
and the more you practice, the better you get at your craft.
So it's important to just keep consistently creating.
Get that practice.
It's all about just taking those daily little actions towards your craft
in order to become really, really good at what you do.
The second habit of successful creatives is that they don't wait for inspiration.
They take action anyway.
They take action even if they're feeling stuck or uninspired.
They don't sit around waiting for inspiration to come to them.
They just do the work, even if it doesn't feel super easy.
They do the work, and then inspiration finds them while they're in action.
So it's all about taking action, sometimes even if you don't feel like it,
because first of all, that's how you stay disciplined.
And second of all, inspiration comes to you when you are in motion.
So if you are not in motion - you're sitting there - things are not gonna happen for you.
But if you take action first, the universe will meet you and support you.
And that's how you continue creating and build that momentum, even if you're not always inspired.
Next, successful creatives understand that perfection is the enemy.
So done is better than perfect.
Something I love that Elizabeth Gilbert says in her book "Big Magic" is:
"In order to be a successful creative, one must be a highly disciplined half-ass."
So it just means that you have to have the discipline to continue creating the work consistently,
even if that work is not good, even if it doesn't meet your high expectations.
Just create the work, put it out there.
Done is better than perfect, you know?
There's actually so much value in just completing a project, rather than taking your sweet time to refine it,
tweak it, make it as perfect as you can,
because we all know that if you take your time, it's just going to take forever.
It's better to just get it done - even if it's half-assed - put your work out there,
and work on the next thing, because that's how you improve at being a creative.
Another habit of successful creatives is that they follow their intuition and trust their gut.
So they've learned to not care as much about what other people think,
what other people say, and care about expressing their truth.
To me, the journey of being a creative is continually learning how to be more and more authentic,
how to express my authentic self and my truth.
And that's a life-long journey, but that's definitely what it takes to be a successful creative,
because there's no value in imitating others.
If you notice, the truly successful creatives are ones that followed their own path,
their own heart, and kind of carved out their own way.
Another habit of successful creatives and successful people, I would say,
is that they're always open to learning new things,
whether it's going deeper into their craft, learning more about their industry or their art.
or learning about something completely different than what they're used to.
Obviously it's really helpful to dive deeper into your craft and learn more and more and
more about whatever field you're in,
but it also is helpful to learn things that are completely random,
because you could actually apply things you've learned from other areas of life to what you do.
There's ways that skills cross-pollinate, knowledge cross-pollinates.
Inspiration can come from that as well, so there's no wasted time in learning new things.
Personally, I love to learn to learn.
I'm always reading new books or taking some sort of online classes.
One of my favorite sites to learn is Skillshare, as you might know.
Skillshare is an online platform where there's over 17,000 classes in creativity, business, cooking even.
All these random hobbies and skills.
It's really fun.
I've taken some cooking classes recently.
Also some watercoloring classes because I love to just get into creating with other mediums.
If you guys are interested in Skillshare, you could check it out right here.
The link is down below.
The first 500 people who click that link will be able to get
Skillshare Premium for just $0.99 for the first two months.
That's a really good deal.
I hope you guys enjoy it.
The next habit of successful creatives is that they're willing to take risks.
So they're willing to try new things, to explore, to go outside of their box,
because you wouldn't be able to get that inspired if you just stayed in the same box all your life.
You have to go out there, discover new things, take some risks, try new things,
in order to create something new and stretch yourself.
I think this goes for everyone in life, not just creatives.
But you have to be willing to take risks in life, because sometimes those risks,
they might be more rewarding in your life.
So if you're not willing to take risks, then your life won't be that rewarding.
If you're able to take bigger risks, then you see bigger success and life will be more rewarding.
You'll also find that successful creatives all have a sacred space for work.
They've created a haven, a studio, or even your little creative corner where they could do creative work.
That's really important because you want to have that environment set up for you to work,
because if you have to set up an environment each time, or if you work in different areas,
it's very inconsistent, and it's kind of an obstacle to your creating.
So you want to have a space for creating, and make it as easy as possible for you to start creating.
That's kind of one that I've been struggling with for the past month,
because I've just moved into a new apartment.
I bought a desk online and it hasn't come yet, so I haven't had a proper place to work
and I'm just getting to know this place to shoot.
It's not a set-up where I could leave it there, so it is an obstacle for me to get creative.
But that's just another reminder for me to create that creative, sacred space for myself ASAP.
Another thing that successful creatives do is they give themselves space to daydream,
to be aimless, to be bored basically.
It might sound weird, but creativity comes out of boredom.
What I mean by that is, you know when you're doing repetitive, boring tasks
like doing the laundry, washing dishes, cleaning, driving, taking a shower,
those are the times where your mind is kind of in a bored, meditative state
and ideas come during those times.
So you have to allow yourself space to do nothing and daydream or do something minute
in order to have creativity and inspiration and ideas flow to you.
I don't know about you, but I get my best ideas when I'm driving or when I'm showering,
sometimes before I go to sleep.
So it's important to give yourself space to let those ideas come to you,
instead of constantly trying to work and force things out of yourself.
Another thing that successful and healthy creatives do is that they take time to fill the well.
meaning that they go out and observe the world, consume content, get inspired, read books, see art.
just do all these things in order to observe the world, absorb the world,
in order to fill that inner creative well,
because sometimes when you're constantly creating, you can deplete your inner well if you don't
take the time to go out and fill it back up.
So this is why Artist Dates are really important.
If you haven't seen it already,
I have a video that I made about Artist Dates which are the concept of taking yourself out
on a creative date just for fun.
It's from the book "The Artist's Way" by Julia Cameron.
And that author talks so much about how it's important to fill your inner creative well.
Another positive habit to pick up is meditating or practicing mindfulness.
When you meditate or practice mindfulness, you are spending time by yourself in solitude
and allowing for self-reflection and self-healing and all of that.
And it's really important, as creatives, that you take time to tap into your source.
Get connected with that divine energy, divine source, in order to fuel your well-being and
your inspiration for creating.
Related to this is the next habit which is one that I am all about.
It's self-care.
Successful creatives take care of themselves.
They take care of their mental, physical, emotional well-being.
Because if you are not well, you can't really do much in the world.
Everything becomes miserable.
It's a struggle.
So you have to take care of yourself first in order to be healthy and positive in your life.
All of that love and positive energy that you give yourself will flow into your work and your art.
Instead of feeling like every day is a struggle, it's important to be able to take care of yourself.
so that your lifestyle is sustainable, because you can't overwork yourself.
You can't just make yourself create like a machine.
You have to keep some sort of balance in order to protect your well-being.
And the last habit of successful creatives is that they continue to reinvent themselves.
They continue to innovate, they continue to transform and evolve,
because what is life without transformation and change?
Life is constantly changing and so you as the artist will inevitably change,
but it's also good to support that change and not resist it.
So successful artists will always try to stretch themselves,
do something different than they've done before,
in order to just change, grow, and evolve over time.
That's just natural and it's good because, basically, artists are not meant to stay the same.
If you stayed the same and created the same work your entire life, things would be boring,
and you wouldn't be fulfilled.
So you have to constantly be stretching yourself and trying new things.
And sometimes your audience or people around you might not like that change, have
but you have to accept it.
The key part to learning to embrace change is to understand that sometimes you have to
let go of the old, in order to make room for the new.
So maybe you have to shed a part of your old self in order to birth your new self in life.
Life is all about continuing to grow and evolve.
So that's what's exciting for me.
I'm excited to grow and change, not just do the same things
but improve in everything that I do, just level up in everything.
And I hope you guys are on this journey as well.
Wishing you good luck, and if you have any habits you think that I missed,
make sure you comment below.
But otherwise, I will see you guys in the next one.
Love you so much.
Bye!