Nurture Creativity: Learn Something

Creativity can seem like an elusive commodity. If you want to expand your creative life, you have to actively engage. And one life hack that’s sure to fire up the creative wood stove is to learn something.

With today’s technology – think YouTube and Udemy – ..you can learn virtually anything. With decent access to the internet, you have a golden opportunity to access a world of knowledge from the comfort of your home, anytime, anywhere. And if you’re not web-inclined, find local courses and workshops in your community for hands-on classes. My bestie took a woodworking class at the local arts center. That led to a wood turning class. And a blacksmithing class. And still more classes. It’s two years later and she’s creating beautiful original art, including tables, pens, cutting boards, bowls, vases, you name it. All because of one class. 

Here are a few other simple ways to make learning a part of your regular routine:

1.    Enroll in an online course. Online sites like The Great Courses, My Bluprint, MasterClass, Lynda, Coursera, and many others allow you to access new courses every day. Most you can watch in 10-20-minute sections. And the prices are often pocket-friendly. I signed up for some Udemy courses while they were on special over New Year’s and paid $10 each.

 2.    Subscribe to Wikipedia’s Featured Article list: There are tons of topics to learn each day on Wikipedia. You don’t have to decide for yourself what topics to learn, since the Featured Article list does the selecting for you.

3.    Read every day. Whether it’s your favourite blog, news magazine or traditional books, reading every day fills you with knowledge and inspiration to energize your creativity. 

4.    Expand your interests. It’s a good idea to go outside your wheelhouse; shift your focus to accommodate new potential passions.

 5.    Make friends with creative people. There’s nothing quite like learning from people in our tribe. Nurture your creativity by spending time with people you’ll grow and learn from. Something as basic as hanging out with a group of musicians in a jam session boosts your creative self. I know this. I jam on a regular basis with my Guitar Night friends and my Other Guitar Night friends. Not only do we learn new things from each, we have a blast :)

 The baton has been passed to you. Challenge yourself to learn something new.