How Journaling Makes You More Creative

If you didn't already know this, journaling and creativity are two of my favourite things and I have whole sections to this blog dedicated to them. You can usually find me most morning, evenings, and really anytime in between, with my head bent over my journal, scribbling away.

Today I'm bringing you an exercise that combines my love of creativity with my passion for journaling: how to journal to increase your creativity.

But first:

How does journaling make you more creative?

Let me explain.

Break down creative blocks

Journaling helps to identify and work through barriers that keep you from your truest creative expression.

It allows you to get to the core of why you keep feeling stuck when it comes to your creativity, or why you think that while other people can have successful creative careers, you can’t. Identifying and working through these barriers allow us to be creative more of the time, and act on the ideas we've had that seem ridiculous to every one else: writing the novel, being a famous painter or starting a blues band in your 40s.

Activate the creative brain

Your creative brain, aka the right side of your brain, is activated and strengthened when we engage in creative activities. Activities like writing. This side of the brain does great things such as easily coming up with creative ideas and being able to connect unrelated ideas to create a bigger picture through imagination.

Write past the inner critic

In her phenomenal work The Artist’s Way Julia Cameron introduces a practice called Morning Pages which trains you to write past the inner critic, or inner censor.

This inner critic is the voice in our head that says what we are creating isn’t good enough, or that someone else is doing it better. It attempts to stop us before we even start with thoughts like ‘If you can’t be the best, what’s the point?’ or ‘Why bother if you can’t make money doing it?’

The inner critic self-edits as we write, paint or dance, and censors true creative freedom.

By doing Morning Pages, continually writing for three pages straight whatever mundane or wacky thought comes into our mind, we get ahead of the critic within. Making it a habit to keep writing when it doesn’t make sense or it isn’t good ‘art,’ trains our brain to keep being creative even when the inner critic is screaming at us to stop.

Find what inspires you

Journaling allows you to delve deeper into your thoughts and feelings, unearth buried dreams, and discover what you might like to try. It’s a source of inspiration, and when we notice patterns in our journal pages of ideas and thoughts we keep coming back to, we get a sense of what we would enjoy exploring more.

Perhaps you keep coming back to wanting to try indoor rock climbing. Time to research your nearest climbing centre.

If you keep repeating a line or phrase over and over, make it into a poem or song.

Keep writing, keep journaling, and inspiration will find you.

Read on for the prompts and a little extra guidance in case you're stumped.

Work through them in sequential order, or pick ones that call to you. As with all journal prompts, if there’s a prompt you have resistance to answering, it might just be the medicine you need.

---

What is creativity to you? Are you a creative?

Do you imagine creativity as painting and crafts or dressing colourfully? Is it confined to art classrooms and advertising offices, or is it something which shows up in little ways in your everyday life? Perhaps in the latte art of your favourite cafe, or trying a new recipe for dinner.

How do you express yourself creatively?

Do you dance or sing? Write or decorate your room to fit your personality?

There is more to creative expression than paints and brushes. Sometimes creativity is simply exploring a new local city because you felt like it.

What do you remember hearing teachers, parents or guardians telling you about creativity?

Positive or negative, encouraging or discouraging, helpful or hindering.

Where you praised for your innovate ideas in debate class, or told to colour within the lines like your classmate?

Maybe, like me, you were praised in art class for painting neatly and within the lines, and now you think there a ‘right’ and ‘wrong’ way to paint.

What we hear from our elders as children can ultimately influence how we show up in the world as adults. It’s time to evaluate whether the things we heard at home or in the classroom resonate as true for us now.

What did you love to do as a child?

Painting, cross country running, telling jokes to make the adults laugh.

When we are children we are far more in-tune with our creativity, because no one has told us yet that we aren't good enough or others are better or that we can't make a living out of it. We encourage creativity in children until we abruptly stop - and that abruptness causes us to grow into adults who don’t know how to express ourselves creatively, freely and confidently.

Another word for creative recovery could be creative confidence; the confidence to create even through a lifetime of people saying we can’t or shouldn’t or we’re not good enough.

What are 5 imaginary lives you'd like to live?

Mine are country singer, actress, translator, dancer, and (inexplicably) a barkeep in a Western.

This question gives us a good indication of what inspires us, or what we’re interested in.

Go a step further and brainstorm ways you could include parts of these lives into your current one.

As an example, for me this could mean learning guitar, practicing Hamlet’s monologue in the mirror, learning Spanish, trying beginners ballet, or making Old Fashioneds for guests.

Imagine your idea of a creative day - what do you do?

Maybe you go to a museum or try ceramic painting followed by writing about your experience while sitting in a coffee shop and people watching. Or you go thrift shopping and have a fashion show for your friends of all the cool and unique new outfits you have.

Creativity does not always have to be art or making something from nothing. Sometimes it is how we show up in the world and express ourselves. It could be deciding we will spend our day exactly how we want or deciding to try something we’ve always wanted to but thought would make us look ‘stupid’ or be a waste of time.

★★★

If you want more journaling tips and prompts you can find related posts below. Or if you’re interested in bringing more creativity into your life, read this post on 20 creative hobbies.