Kids, creativity and you! How's that for an opener? We don't have kids, but I was one once and certainly a part of me still is.

Kids have wonderful imaginations. Do you know why? Because they have so little reality to screw with it.

A child's happy little brain is like an Easter egg hunt, always in a fun game of finding and collecting new interesting things. They haven't learned about currency or bills or cluttered their developing minds with phobias and responsibilities. Nope, it's virgin territory, open to creativity.

I meet adults all the time though that want to be creative and they often tell me this with such desire, that it actually comes across as though they've been defeated.

I can't draw a straight line with a ruler, I can't make a stick figure, I can't find the time and the best one of all, I'm just not creative.

So here's the thing. I usually then draw out of them a time when their creative life was zapped for one of responsibility. Where the kid was told, often prematurely, to become an adult or they lost it to the "burden of the responsible man—or woman."

Here's how it goes. There's a boy, he's playing fireman. He's got the bright red fire truck, the hat and runs around the house making siren sounds. Now ask yourself, is his motivation one of daring and community service or creative enthusiasm? At say 6 years old, does he want to run into a burning house or does he like loud trucks with ladders and white dogs with black spots?

At some point we all grow up and have to put out life's fires, but we also often have influences which can suppress our creative desire, often with dissatisfying results. The best one is being told about "starving artists" and never told about the many who live quite enjoyable and fruitful creative lives. There are not just a few you know? There are hundreds of thousands of professionals and they don't just paint, they make movies, create websites, design clothing and houses. They dance, they sing, are musicians or are creative thinkers. Past that, there are many that just want to be creative.

Yet it's interesting how many gifted people I meet, often very educated, but also creatively unhappy. Creativity is all about freedom of the mind. It's the freedom to explore and really about the only place left without rules, regulations, compliance and oversight. This is one of creativity's most shining reasons to exist and I've proven time and time again to those that don't think they have it, that they indeed do in some form or level. But it has either been suppressed or now buried in responsibility.

Creativity is also not like an on-off switch. It's like anything learned. It takes enthusiasm, which kids have boatloads of and it also takes practice. Use it or lose it.

But it also takes understanding of self-expression. You may think you want to draw, but baby you really need to dance! Or sculpt or write, but the important thing is not to suppress it and then to explore it.

In short some have fun. Adults by their very grown-up nature are results driven. We can't help it, we've become responsible and I am certainly not implying that responsibility is a bad thing. That would be missing the point entirely. I am saying that you need to allow yourself to turn that off to have a little fun. Our grown-up nature to be too results driven can set us up for failure in learning new things, especially creative ones. We become carrot and stick driven over smile driven. Having something make you smile can be quite a carrot.

So using something like drawing as an example, think how long it took you to learn how to use a pencil. Don't think a few days. You started very young making a mess with it and having a blast. Then a teacher taught you how to draw—I mean write. Big A, little a, big B, little b and so on. Get it? All that is, is drawing. It's straight and curvy lines placed in understandable positions. It took you much longer than you think and yet I see people take one painting class, using a paint brush, which is hundreds of times harder to use than a pencil and come out saying, I found I wasn't creative.

What? Give yourself a break with new things, let it be fun first and if you have kids and really want to be creative yourself, take lessons from them. They know how to make it fun and they'll be happy you joined them.

Live An Artful Life, Tom

www.ThomasNeel.com