Better Than You Imagined

For our online group we were prompted to create something using your favorite color. Mine is yellow. I love how lively and bright yellow is, yet it can be daunting to find yellows that are not too bright or sappy. I dug out every yellow marker or pen I have and created the background. It took me about two hours. It was fun to see the progress build. I then found this quote from Mary Kay Ash, the founder of Mary Kay cosmetics:

God does not ask
your ability
or your inability. 
He asks only 
your availability. 

- Mary Kay Ash 2001

As I was writing the last word – availability – I spelled it wrong by adding an extra ‘a’. I said a few choice words and shook my head. RATS! Now what? I liked this piece and did not just want to start all over…so I thought long and hard, then laughed and added a few more ‘a’s and somehow it worked. Hooray for being open to fixing and misspelling!

Sometimes as creative people we forget that doing things, making things, building things means we have to make ourselves available to handle the unexpected. That may be a spelling error, the yucky color that needs to be changed, or a measurement error on the last piece of wood. What started as a mistake has the power to turn into a beautiful feature if we have the patience and forgiveness to keep moving forward. And let me be clear that EVERYONE is a creative person…and I do mean everyone. It may be in creating a spreadsheet, building a car, arranging furniture or writing notes. I believe every one of us has creativity in our souls, and it manifest itself in various ways. Sometimes we learn the most about our own creativity when we make mistakes…and have the courage to fix them.

So let me encourage you to forgive your mistakes and have the courage to think creatively to keep moving forward. Just because it did not turn out how you thought it would, doesn’t mean it is wrong or bad. Doing something unconventional may be the thing that makes what you did better than you imagined!