A Creative's Creed

Words for every creative to live by

Alexa Phillips
May 06, 2024 • Estimated Reading Time: 4 minutes

Welcome to Creatives Anonymous, a weekly newsletter about navigating creativity in the 21st century. It inspires, encourages, and empowers readers to take back their creative power.

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Years ago, I came across something called “A Creative’s Creed.”

I’ve printed it out and hung it in every creative space I’ve ever been in as a reminder of creativity's role in our lives. Most importantly, I wanted it to remind me to prioritize my creative practice.

It’s no secret that creativity gets buried under the mounting pressures of everyday life. Sometimes, we need a little reminder to make space for creativity. Just this weekend, I was working on a brand vision board for my business, and it reminded me how much I wanted to prioritize creating this year. I was inspired to reset my intentions as we approach the second half of the year, and got me excited to take on some new creative projects in the next few months 👀

So, print this out and hang it up in your creative space where you can see it daily. Maybe it’ll inspire you just like it does me ✨

A Creative’s Creed

The new creativity is the relentless pursuit of problem-tackling

And not the endless pursuit of fame and award-stacking

Rely on the openness to many inputs and involvements

And avoid the black box of dated creative departments

Live the imagineer mentality and creed

An artistic approach, a creative doesn’t need

Shaping the future, a creative problem-solver’s intention

Circumvent relying on changing current convention

Fall in love with problems, complications and intrusions

And confront all issues with the love of solutions

Creative disrupters value outcomes and wins

Not executing solely on outcomes and whims

Be inspired; break habits and norms, and don’t yield

Stop protecting your silo, an unchallenged comfort field

Do great work with a high stake

And get over doing great work for great work’s sake

Embrace data, analytics and information

The primary focus should not be your baseless intuition

Be extremely agile, quick and don’t stall

Lest you get caught riding the proverbial waterfall

CREATIVE CORNER

🎞️ What I’m consuming:
- The Idea of You on Amazon Prime had the 1D fangirl in me screaming. I need more music from August Moon IMMEDIATELY.
- Unfrosted on Netflix is a fun and campy comedy created by Jerry Seinfeld about the invention of Pop-Tarts.
- Big Magic by Elizabeth Gilbert has some great nuggets about creative living.
- Why some of us don’t have one true calling, a TED Talk from Emilie Wapnick, talks about how some of us never feel settled doing one thing because we’re multipotentialites.
💡 What I’m loving: I want to dabble in creating other long-form content, specifically video essays and podcasts. I’m also thinking about doing a “coffee chat” style live on YouTube. Stay tuned.
🎨 What I’m working on: I haven’t done any writing this week, but I am so proud of myself for doing 15K words during Camp NaNoWriMo in April!
💭 Weekly musing:

Practice any art, music, singing, dancing, acting, drawing, painting, sculpting, poetry, fiction, essays, reportage, no matter how well or badly, not to get money or fame, but to experience becoming, to find out what’s inside you, to make your soul grow.

Kurt Vonnegut

Thank you 💕

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I’m so grateful for all of your support!