Creativity as Self Development: The Art of Revealing

A catalyst. Creativity is a catalyst for change, development, growth. Creativity is challenge. It is asking ourselves to delve deeper, expand beyond, and explore every crevice of who we are and how we can take up space in the world to express ourselves and process our experiences with purpose, healing, and joy. 

We always want to talk about therapy, self help books, a walk through the forest, solo travel, and learning courses as forms of self development. I believe a critical piece of self development in any capacity - self awareness, growth, learning - is creativity. Whereas the aforementioned self development ploys are instructive and wanderlustful, creativity is revealing. It doesn’t require us to chase or change, it requires us to reflect and become. It asks us to be who we are with authenticity; to become who we are meant to be with integrity, and explore how to get there through consistency and curiosity. 

How does creativity contribute to self development?

Growth Mindset

Creativity asks us to enter a season of challenge. Creativity is alchemy. To alchemize what you have inside - vision, drive, ideas, desires and make something, execute it, express it you need to develop skills, vocabulary, a tolerance for failure and a desire to grow and expand beyond where you are now. Creativity encourages, and indeed, requires a growth mindset. A mindset that believes in learning more, becoming different, facing fears, and overcoming obstacles - how? Through growth and change. Not only in relation to our skills and creative ability, but in our capacity to learn about and understand ourselves and our world - a broadening of perspectives, or learning and leaning into our own humanness, compassion, and grace. We have to be okay knowing that we can be more than what we are now - that doesn’t necessarily mean who we are or where we are now is bad or wrong or less, but that we want to become and do and live more fully and authentically through a growth mindset. 

Building Self Trust

Creativity forces us to really see ourselves and evaluate how we prioritize showing up for our first human - ourselves. It asks us time and again, day in and day out, to show up for our souls, our own goals and follow through on the excitement , promises and plans made yesterday. Often we focus so much of our time on learning how to trust others, repair trust with others, and build resiliency in the face of broken promises. Our relationship with our own selves, the trust in ourselves that no matter what happens externally to us, that we will show up for and care for and love ourselves often falls by the wayside. Creative projects lay incomplete, scattered around us throughout our lives and force us to see our patterns of self neglect, self betrayal. I’m not asking you to finish a huge project or start a new one. All I’m asking is that we look at our creativity like a helping hand, one that seeks to repair our trust with ourselves by showing up in small ways, consistently for ourselves, what we love, what we make. Creativity is the vehicle by which we learn to stand in our own power through self trust, and that sets the tone for all external interactions.   

Exploring and Expressing Emotion

Creativity whether for yourself or others is always about connectivity. Connecting with yourself, sharing bits of yourself with others, connecting with the world on a grand scale, or forging deeper connections with the people in your circle. Creativity gives us a beautiful way to reach out and express who we are, what we feel, and make sense of it in the process. Creativity allows us the space to explore how and why we feel. It’s about developing emotional depth and breadth, not hyperfocussing on a feeling or giving it free reign. The creative process can also help us explore emotional depths and nuance in a way conventional conversation just doesn’t. Creativity holds us and gives a place to unleash, to experiment with our emotions and learn about ourselves through them. Creativity can hold how we feel and reflect it back to us even when we don’t yet know how we feel, when we forget what it is to feel, when we need a reminder of who we were. When used as a mirror, not only can we examine ourselves more fully, but others can connect with us more easily and bridge gaps in communication among individuals and populations of people.  

Processing Thought Patterns

Creativity is a process that allows us to tap into our natural processing rhythms and patterns. It reveals our thought patterns, our deep seated beliefs about ourselves and our capabilities, and then challenges us to face them, acknowledge them and then do something about them. Many times in our everyday life we struggle to function at the productivity level the hustle culture values. This isn’t a failing of us, this is a failing of the system, a system that does not value our individual humanness, our natural tendencies and rhythms. Creativity is wholly individual. It cracks open the way we work, the way we think, the way we operate. The creative process becomes our playground for exploring our own thought patterns and innate work rhythms. If we are diligent, if we pay attention, creativity can help reveal our natural inclinations, beliefs, and patterns of behaviour, thought, and work; we can learn how to better embrace how we are, developing a more compassionate inner voice, grace-filled perspective, and productive for us approach to balancing our lives.   

Learning New Skills

Creativity asks us to develop our skills in whatever discipline(s) we choose to execute. Not only does creativity ask us to humble ourselves to become beginners over and over again, but it asks us to learn life skills - self discipline, self awareness, communication, compassion, grace, resiliency. These are all skills that carry us through our lives, that allow us to form connections, and interact with the world at large. Our curiosity is often underutilized, creativity asks us to engage with it actively and direct it in learning. Our capacity for learning is insatiable. There is always more to learn and this is my case for diversifying your creative practice, becoming a multi-disciplinary creative. We are multifaceted, we deserve to develop ourselves and our creativity to encompass, express and execute all of the fullness, desire, and vision we hold inside. Cultivate your curiosity through your creative practice and watch the way your life expands. 

We all want to live full authentic lives. Self development is lauded as this great cure all for anyone feeling lost or stuck or less than. I have never found self development books, tools, or talks to be of great use to me personally, but creativity, building an intentional creative practice, a life lead with curiosity, has been the biggest game changer in building myself into a version of the woman I always wanted to be - as a woman, a daughter, a friend, a sister, a mother. Creativity has been my catalyst, my mirror, my vehicle for developing not only my creative practice, but developing myself for a bold and beautiful life.