Embrace Your Weird: Face Your Fears and Unleash Creativity

Accepting that we're imperfect, and knowing that we have a right to exist anyway, is an empowering and important life tool.

If we don’t know what we have in our paint boxes, how can we know all the possible things we could paint?

Write down every possible solution to a problem you have that is giving you anxiety. Write until your imagination is exhausted. Then write more. Make sure to put the most ridiculous solutions you can think of on the list. When in doubt, add, “Aliens invade the earth and destroy it.” Nothing is so grim you can’t unravel it with a little dork-filled humor.

With a bit of mental gymnastics, “I’m so anxious about what’s going to happen!” can be flipped into “I can’t wait to see what happens!

Success follows the grind you love.

How can I make this fun for me?’ should be the mantra in every creative activity that we do.

I have a right to spend my time this way.

Everything creative we put out into the world is just a way to figure out how we can be better.

Next time there’s an anxiety-inducing task at hand, why not visualize doing it in front of someone who’s delighted at everything you do?

If we write to the point where we no longer have any solutions that could work, here’s the kicker: Simply accept that there is no solution right now. And that’s okay! We did everything we could! Sometimes accepting that the future is unknown is as big a relief as we can find in the moment.

There are seeds of possibility in each of your dreams. No matter how big or small. And there is nothing NOT worth planting.

Creating can be just a vehicle for releasing feelings.

Self-awareness is a muscle, and in order to start creating, we must start flexing it. Because the more aware we are of ourselves, the more comfortable we’ll be in expressing our points of view. What we like and don’t like. What we want to embrace. What we want to shred to pieces with our vengeance!! (Oops.) We need to know and embrace who we are if we want to overcome resistance, criticism, and all the other hurdles that will pop up as we incorporate more creativity into our lives.

when we integrate the WORK of creativity into our lives, we are choosing to fill our time with something that yields infinite long-term satisfaction and rewards.

A lot of what holds many of us back from creating is thinking that if we’re not instantly good at something, we are not “talented.” And if we’re not talented, we should abandon the effort. “Try the next hill! There might be oil/gold/magic mushrooms there instead!” This is the mythology around creativity we have to dismantle. Because that’s what it is. A Big. Fat. Myth.

We’ll never know exactly what we’re capable of unless we push ourselves and TRY IT ALL.

At the heart of it, being creative allows us to understand ourselves better. Just like fingerprints or personalized music playlists, our creativity couldn’t come from anyone else.

Because, at the heart of it, creativity is about how expressing ourselves affects other people. We want to be understood, we want to share who we are.

No one molds a sculpture, invents a recipe, or designs a new building with the impulse of “Meh.” Emotions are the basis of all creativity. And resistance. So if a strong emotion comes up while working through this book, positive or negative, GO FURTHER INTO IT!

Breaking rules is part of creating. So consider nothing sacred.

Draw the WORST picture of a horse in the space below. Make efforts to draw as badly as you can. Overachievers uninvited!

It’s our human right to be crappy at something and still enjoy it! Yes I’m using Comic Sans. Because even though it’s the butt of every typography joke, I still enjoy its whimsicality!

Try it on this page. You just opened the front door and a dinosaur in a tuxedo lunges for your face! What do you do? Fill up the page with what comes to mind! Incomplete sentences or drawings are fine. Just GO GO GO. You have five minutes! Put a timer on and start!

Creative work means signing up for the process, not the result. If you take on the creative WORK and sign up for the GRIND, then failure or success will be a moot point; we have already gotten our reward in the DOING of it.

Do I just want to sign up for the RESULT of it, or do I want to sign up for the PROCESS?’ Sorry to have to bring my Mom voice in, but this step is crucial! And requires soul-searching. But answering it in an honest way can guide us closer to defining dreams that will fill our lives with richness rather than frustration. And give us a better chance at achieving them.

We WILL reach our creative goals if we persist. Stay focused. Look to allies for support. And use the tools in this book to cut off enemies when they start to spring with their cheery “Heyo! Care to hear how much you suck?” voices.

The only thing in our life we have control over is ourselves. Unfortunately, we are not born with user manuals. (Or warranties. Or return slips, for that matter.) So we have to work hard to uncover who we are and what sparks our passions. It’s a job. In fact, I believe it’s an integral part of the act of living.

seems like disaster’s about to strike because there are so many people YELLING. That’s the time for us to back the truck up and journal it out. When we throw a ton of logical answers at our worries, we’re able to drain the power from our anxiety.

you have a great need to make people understand something, or a deep feeling you want to communicate, that is where you will find the seeds of your most rewarding creativity!