How Creative Journals Unleash the Muse
Is the unfinished manuscript of your short story, poem, or book lurking in your documents folder, begging you to complete it, while you consistently shy away from its call?
Do you have an amazing business idea – one that you know could change it all – just waiting for you to pour your sweat and hours into it? But, you have no idea how to get your idea down on paper?
Does the blank canvas of your untapped creativity or artistic gift to the world scare the shit out of you? Does it taunt you when you sit down to create?
Let me tell you a secret…
Creative journals can help you unlock any blocks, any self-loathing, self-doubt, or writer's block, and get you to where you want to go.
What is your art? Creative Journals will help you find it
I bet there is a novel inside of you right now, screaming to get published.
Or, a million-dollar business idea just waiting to be launched.
But, the moment you sit down at your desk to bring it into the world, the demons of procrastination and distraction pry you away from the task at hand. It whispers, and sometimes shouts:
You’re not good enough at writing, why would you write a novel?
No one is ever going to buy your products, why don’t we just get back on Social Media?
It’s too much work to write a novel/launch this business and it will fail anyway.
Do these thoughts sound familiar? Then you have met Resistance.
I bet you know it well. We are all familiar with it.
Stephen Pressfield was the author who gave it its name. His book, The War of Art is the holy bible for wannabe creatives. In the War of Art, Pressfield tells us that Resistance is the force that acts upon you if you ever dare to get out of your comfort zone.
He states:
“Resistance will tell you anything to keep you from doing your work. It will perjure, fabricate, falsify, seduce, bully, and cajole… It will assume any form if that’s what it takes to deceive you. It will reason with you like a lawyer or jam a nine-millimeter in your face like a stickup man. Resistance has no conscience. It will pledge anything to get a deal, then double-cross you as soon as your back is turned. If you take Resistance at its word, you deserve everything you get. Resistance is always lying and always full of shit.”
To overcome and beat this incessant force of Resistance, you need to be able to find discipline, and you need a creative outlet to warm yourself up to defeat the force.
One of the best creative outlets to unlock this innate ability inside you, and get in touch with the muse is Creative Journals.
What are Creative Journals?
When we consider successful artists in the world, like novelists, poets, singers, painters, and movie makers... It is reasonable to imagine that they spend their lives sipping creativity from a perpetual stream of inspiration.
The truth is, though, that preserving creativity is not easy — even for highly skilled professionals.
What is a hack or habit they all use to reach new heights and pour their creations out into the world?
Creative journals.
Journals are creative as you can design them in any way you like. Any type of journaling you do that helps you unlock your creativity is a creative journal.
Creative journaling is an outlet that can help you unlock your creativity, increase your self-confidence, and uncover an inexhaustible supply of inspiration.
Some of the best creative journals to try and unlock your potential:
Morning Pages Creative Journals
Art Journal
Creative Journals for Self-Discovery
But first, What is ‘The Muse’?
The Muse is the unseen force that arrives when we face our Resistance head-on. It is pure potential. Its main role is to inspire and encourage creatives, artists, and aspiring entrepreneurs on their trepid adventure into the unknown.
It was there when Homer wrote the Odyssey. It helped Steve Jobs come up with Apple. It built Hogwarts for J.K Rowling. Oh yeah, and that chapter you added to your novel last week? The muse gave that to you.
That amazing business idea that could change your life, and the world for that matter - yup, that was the muse.
The last song you belted out on the guitar in your garage? You guessed it - the muse was there instructing you how to play.
The muse works in funny ways and it is where all creativity and new ideas arise.
Much like Santa Claus, the muse wanders through the world with a giant sack of ideas, ready to deliver them to anyone who has been a good little artist or entrepreneur and sat their ass in their seat for the day and got down to work.
Unlike Santa Claus, she doesn’t come once a year. She comes daily like a woman with a Satisfier Pro.
So, the moment the muse passes by your house, you best make sure you are sitting at your desk, with your pen in your hand, or punching away at your laptop keyboard.
If you’re not. Fine. The muse skips past your house for the day.
She will try again tomorrow. You best be there…
If you aren’t, if you keep procrastinating, checking social media, and putting off the task that you really dream of achieving, well, she starts to get a little annoyed and will withhold her creative favors from you.
You’ve missed a few days in a row now, and she notices this… Things get a lot harder now. Resistance is rearing its ugly head.
That creative problem you are struggling with? That’s up to you to figure out.
Struggling to bring your products to life and get your business off the ground? You’re on your own, buddy.
But what happens when you actually show up to work?
You get up early, and you pour yourself a coffee. You open up a creative journal or your laptop and focus on the creative task that you are destined to achieve.
Where the magic happens…
The muse wanders past your house and notices you hard at work. Writing line after line in your creative journal, or brainstorming your ideas on your notepad. And then she sees you there again tomorrow. She sees you working away on Saturday night when the rest of your friends are out partying, she sees you there Monday morning before the sun is up, hours before anyone has unwrapped themselves from their cozy blankets.
She’s smiling down on you now. She provides you with the breakthrough. She gives you the lightbulb idea as you take a shower or drive your car to work.
It feels like you came up with the breakthrough or the idea - but really it was delivered to you as a present from the muse. All because you found your creative outlet and you sat down to do your work.
This is how creativity happens. And guess what? All it takes is dedicating some time each day to write or draw inside your creative journal.
You can use your creative journals to test out crazy ideas, to dump out the rough and ragged sentences that make no sense, you can draw and scribble and scratch out words, and the muse will see you trying.
Okay, so what are the best methods of creative journals to help you unlock the muse?
The Best Type of Creative Journals to help the muse find you
1. Morning Pages Creative Journals
Morning Pages help clarify, comfort, focus, and synchronize your mind for the day ahead. In their most simple form, they are a way to dump out all of the shit words and sentences inside your head before you get down to business. A free test run on any ideas or tales you want to tell.
The best thing about Morning Pages is that they help you build a disciplined routine and provide you with an amazing creative outlet.
All you have to do is wake up, open your journal and write three pages of absolutely anything. Don’t even think about it. Just write random sporadic words if you have to.
If you keep a morning pages creative journal. You will find that your mind is ready for whatever tasks follow. They unlock a new side of your creativity because you have already beaten resistance and written three pages - why not do a few more?
2. Art journals
An art journal is a creative journal for painters, drawers, and graphic designers. Use it to draw, sketch, scribble, doodle, and paint.
Just like with Morning Pages, there are no limits and you are never required to show it to anyone.
The liberation that this creative outlet provides is so freeing. You just simply have to let the creativity flow out of you and through you. If you use this creative journal enough, you just need to move your pencil or brush and the muse will guide your hand.
Types of Creative Art Journals you can try:
A Creative Sketchbook: sketchbook is a place to draw, paint, and sketch anything that springs to mind or anything you can see. There's no pressure or structure here.
A Coloring Book: You may make your own coloring book templates. Letters, forms, contours, etc. Or buy a coloring book. This is a mind- and nervous-system-healing technique.
Scrapbook: Scrapbooking uses newspaper clippings, favorite phrases, pictures, and magazine graphics. You can also create a mind map or vision board for your goals doing this.
3. Creative Journals for Self-Discovery
Many people will tell you that art or writing or building a brand is a way of expressing yourself. A method for self-expression.
But, if the artist or entrepreneur, or aspiring writer does not know what they want to express, how can this be so?
And if they don’t fully know themselves, then how can they be expressing them-self?
In spite of what a writer or entrepreneur or artist claims, they have no idea what they're creating before they start—or, for the most part, even while they are in the creative process.
But the muse knows.
I believe to make good art, you have to go beyond the self.
You can not be hampered by the ego or your fear of judgment, failure and disappointment will stop you from ever creating anything - be it a novel, a business, or a painting.
There is a deeper source that is trying to come out of you when you sit down with your creative journals. You are not trying to express, you are trying to discover.
You are like an archaeologist stumbling across a barren desert in search of an ancient dinosaur fossil. You know there is something more than the eye can see. Something deep below that needs to be uncovered. But you don’t know what it looks like or what it feels like or where it even is for that matter.
The more you dig, the more you scratch away at the surface, and the more you brush away the dust and dirt, the clearer the image comes.
A creative journal for self-discovery allows you to be the archaeologist, to dig and dig and dig and eventually uncover something that may never have been found if it weren’t for you. It allows you to polish the bones of a story, connect the puzzles of a business plan, and find your ideal customer.
So use your creative journals as a self-discovery tool, and just see what you can find.
If you still need more encouragement to start a creative journaling practice, you will find them below:
Reasons to Start a Creative Journal
1. The Cure for Feeling like a Fraud
Self-sabotage is real, and it's a common problem that many of us struggle with. By judging our own creative efforts against those of more established artists, writers, or business people, we often fail to begin the creative process at all.
We've all been there. We sit and wait for creativity to strike. Hoping that a lightning bolt of inspiration will strike us and give us the insights and motivation we need. And only once that happens do we begin creating.
Unfortunately, this rarely (almost never) happens.
Thankfully there is a better way to approach this.
After you get started on a creative journal, you'll find that your imagination runs wild; ideas flow, words pour out on the page, and something exciting comes to life.
Getting out of your own head and starting a creative journal are the first steps in building the life you dream of.
2. Overcome Fear and Increase Self-Confidence
Creative journals are not the same as writing a diary.
What you get out of keeping a creative journal is a visual representation of your emotional, mental, and spiritual processes. You begin to understand the inner workings of your mind.
In addition to this, the more you engage in any behavior, the more certain you will feel that you can succeed at it.
This has nothing to do with your ability, and everything to do with proving to yourself that you can do it.
In times when confidence in yourself seems impossible, you can strengthen your own convictions by reading back on your insightful creative journal entries.
Before long, you will have a stack of completed creative journals - hard proof that you can create, that there is art and excellence inside of you and you know how to bring it out into the world.
Do you keep a creative journal? Comment below, I would love to hear your story!
