Were you fed the same myths about creative talent I was, that you either had it or you didn’t have it?
If you had it, creating would come easily and naturally, and if you didn’t have it, well sorry, you’re locked outside, on the wrong side of those magic doors only the talented could pass through.
As kids, we could try something creative once, but if we didn’t get it right first time, then clearly we had no talent and shouldn’t try again. No point wasting money and materials on someone who couldn’t be any good at it. I’m sure my parents meant well, wanted to save us pain and grief trying and failing, trying and failing, bashing our head on that locked door repeatedly.
But they were wrong. Natural talent is only part of the equation.
Parents and teachers put labels on us early. Maybe you were labelled, too. I was the brainy one, the one who was good at reading and writing. My sister was the pretty one, the creative one, good at drawing and painting. She was encouraged to practice, keep trying, keep creating. I wasn’t.
Now, being the good little girl I was, I listened, obeyed, and internalised that totally by my late teens. If I wasn’t good at something straight away, if my first attempts weren’t just like the vision I had of what I wanted to create, the only thing to do was give up and stop trying.
I followed those rules for such a long time.
Great story idea, but the first chapter just wasn’t working- give up. Image in my head of a painting I wanted to make, but what I created was nothing like it- give up. Anything at all creative I wanted to do but couldn’t master straight away- give up.
In the end, I learned to stick to my books and hard subjects like maths, where I knew I could do well. I didn’t paint, didn’t draw, didn’t sew, gave up on my stories for a long time too. I stuck to what I was good at. I didn’t risk failure.
Now I’m trying to learn again, find out how to open that magic door, learn to be creative.
To do that means allowing myself to fail. Allowing myself to make mistakes. allowing myself to play. Practicing.
My sister truly is a wonderful artist. She has a natural talent for art. Her drawings looked like what they were supposed to. Her paintings were full of light and colour, while mine somehow were always muddy and dull. We both went to pottery classes in our teens, her first pot was good, mine was wonky and lopsided.
More evidence I shouldn’t try. I was outside the door. I should leave the creative stuff for those who had talent. I obviously didn’t.
But what if natural talent, the sort easily recognised by parents and teachers, wasn’t all that counted? What if I’ve had creative talent all along but just haven’t used it?
Yes, my sister is talented. Very talented. She’s also spent thousand and thousands of hours practicing, painting, drawing, learning. She’s worked and practiced hard to develop her talent. I’m sure along the way she made plenty of mistakes too. Canvases that got painted over. Drawings she tore up or erased.
The only difference was her belief she had some talent kept her going, while my belief I have no talent made me give up.
The ten thousand hour rule is right. You need to love something enough to put in all those hours, and talent helps, but even for the relatively untalented person, that many hours practice must produce some level of mastery.
What if we could all do anything we wanted to, regardless of whether we’re talented or not?
I was dyspraxic, a clumsy kid, so I couldn’t draw well early, I didn’t have the fine motor control for it. But I can have a go at it now. It’s a matter of practice. It’s a matter of tolerating “mistakes”. It’s about accepting that I’m learning, and it’s okay not to do it right first time, second time, or even the eighth ninth and tenth times!
That’s the real “secret” of books like Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain, or Writing Down the Bones
. It’s giving permission to try and to make mistakes and to practice practice practice. So many of us have been so indoctrinated into thinking if we don’t do it right first time we have no ability and should give up.
We need to switch that thinking around now. I definitely do.
The more I try things, the more I’ll discover what I enjoy and what I want to do. Yes, I’ll be bad at first and make lots of mistakes, but if I keep trying, I’ll get better at it. It’s not fun to try, and fail. But what if it wasn’t a failure, what if it was a learning experience on the path to master?
From today, I intend to have a go at whatever creative activity I feel like trying. It doesn’t need to cost much to experiment. There’s so much free information and tutorials online. I can buy paints and pencils and sketch pads at the Pound Shop to play with drawing and painting. I can buy cheap clothes and fabric at the charity shops to play around with clothing designs, where the cost of new fabric might put me off being adventurous. I want to learn to knit again, but yarn is expensive, so I’m experimenting with rag yarn.
We don’t need to wait outside those magic doors, longing for permission. There aren’t any secret passwords or funny handshakes to get us in. We just need to give ourselves permission to play. Those door will swing wide open for us.
What creative activity have you always wanted to do but allowed cost or “lack of talent” or belief you just can’t do it to put you off trying, or make you give up too soon?
How can you allow yourself to do that thing today?
