CHAPTER 32


Start Something!

I truly believe we are all creative beings. I also believe we are all passionate about something.

Those two things together are like fire and gasoline. Put them together and you got yourself a raging inferno. In a good way, of course.

If you don’t care about your inherent passion or your God-given creative strengths, skip this chapter.

Ladies and gentlemen:

Life is for living.

Scratch that.

Life is for grabbing by the throat and through gritted teeth saying, “This life is mine. I will live it with all I’ve got. I won’t take crap from anyone, won’t play small, or safe. I will admit that I’m a kick-ass. I can break through after a breakdown. I can get up after I fall down on my face.”

(Okay, so that might have been a little dramatic, but I think you get the gist.)

A big part of living a kick-ass life and having those inspiring moments like the one I just mentioned is to tap into your natural creativity. Bringing it to light regularly is what will fuel you and help you become your most kick-ass self.

Let me dispel a common myth. Creativity isn’t a special gift only given to a lucky few. I truly believe we are all born with creativity, and somewhere along the line in life we forget about it, or it escapes us. Here are some ways to get it back:

• Practice gratitude. See Chapter 44 for more on this topic. Practicing gratitude opens up good feelings and promotes self-love. When we’re grateful we tend to attract and manifest not only what we truly want, but what dormant creativity might be there waiting to be sparked, too.
• Read, watch movies, go to plays, etc. The key is to digest a hodgepodge of themes. Adventure, humor, drama — whatever. The stories invite your brain to bounce around a bit and not stick to one idea. In addition, if music is your thing, go with that. If I’m in a creative funk, I put on disco, then switch to classic rock, then some ’80s — and all the stress and funkiness goes away and I’m back to whatever creative project I want.
• Join or start a book or writing club. Or any kind of creativity group for that matter. Being around “your tribe” will ignite your creative juices and lift your spirits.
• Meditate and do yoga. This is about being still. Sometimes our minds get so overloaded, it’s as if we have 2,974 browser windows open at the same time and can’t get and keep a single thought together. Meditation and yoga can help calm all of that down and let you reboot your mind, and then kick-start your creativity.
• Be a kid again. Children have unlimited amounts of imagination and creativity that just ooze out of them. When was the last time you colored in a coloring book, or played with Legos or Play-Doh? Here’s the thing with this one: Make sure you’re tapping into your inner child, not someone else’s version. To be honest, playing with Play-Doh makes me want to gouge my eyes out. So for me to do this in order to spark creativity is futile because I never liked doing it as a kid. Now, running through the sprinklers is an entirely different story. Do what you want to do that’s childlike and fun.

Also, try not to get the ideas of “creating” and “being creative” confused. I for one used to think being creative meant being an artist or a playwright, or maybe even preschoolers proudly holding up their finger paintings.

Creating isn’t only that. It can simply mean expressing who you are as an individual. What might be creative for you is actually creating yourself. Creating the person you want to be, the person you were meant to be. (And know that by doing that, you’re actually creating your own revolution of sorts — by standing up for who you are and not who you think you should be.)

Your creating, your revolution, your something is fuel for your life.

Whatever is there is your own personal revolution; your own inferno. Go now.