How to Find Your Creative Voice (Even If You Feel Lost Right Now)
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E83 How to Find Your Creative Voice (Even If You Feel Lost Right Now)
To Find Your Creative Voice: Go Beyond Your Comfort Zone
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Hello, my creative friend. Welcome back to another episode of Create Today with Beth Buffington. This is a podcast that helps you stay inspired, keep showing up and build the creative happiness and confidence that you deserve. Today we're going to touch on something that is both thrilling. And a little uncomfortable, and that is reaching past your comfort zone and understanding your unique creative voice.
Now, have you ever felt like your work doesn't really feel like you, or maybe you've been. Hiding behind trends and tools and fancy techniques, wondering when your real style will finally appear to you. Well, today we're going to unpack what it means to [00:01:00] have a creative voice and why it's so hard to claim it and how you can start discovering and using your voice. Even if you feel mute and even if you feel creatively stuck right now. and we are also going to look at your comfort zone and realize how being stagnant and not moving from the comfy couch of your comfort zone is making you creatively, well, soft and bland.
We are going to explore what it means to move past your comfort zone and how being uncomfortable is a super way to increase your creativity. First, let's talk about what it means to have a unique creative voice.
Now, when we say voice, we're not just talking about sounds or words. Hmm. [00:02:00] No, it's deeper than that. Your creative voice is the unique way that you express who you are in the world. So it's the flavor, it's the feeling, it's the fingerprint that appears. Shows up in everything you make, whether it's a story you tell, a meal, you cook, a room that you decorate art, or music that you make, or even how you solve a problem.
It's not about being the loudest, the most flamboyant, the most well trained or the most skilled. No, it is just about being true to yourself and the things you care about. So your voice can certainly be
many different things, but here's the key. If you're trying to be something that you are not, your creativity is going to [00:03:00] feel like it's hard to create. This is because your creative voice is made from your experiences, your quirks, your curiosity, your values, your passions, your sense of humor, your love of color, or quiet or whimsy or chaos.
It's your inner compass and it is guiding the choices that you make in your art, your work, and your life. And here's the best part. Your creative voice isn't something that you have to invent, like a fingerprint or your eye color. It is already part of you. But you do have to trust it, and sometimes you have to uncover it beneath the layers of doubt and comparison and what you or other people have told you you should do.[00:04:00]
You'll find your unique voice when you follow, what lights you up, when you let yourself play, when you stop trying to sound like everyone else. Start sounding like you and know this. The world doesn't need another copy of another shallow influencer that is following the latest trend.
It needs your voice. Your voice makes your creativity personal and special and meaningful, and this makes your creativity powerful. and by powerful, I don't mean necessarily loud or boisterous or confrontational. A strong creative voice can whisper and it can be gentle. It will still be strong because a strong voice is your authenticity [00:05:00] shining brightly through the work that you do.
Now, here's what the power of a strong creative voice can do. It connects people. It can help heal. It comforts those who need a lift. It inspires those who need motivation, and this is the power your creative voice has to share with you and with the world. Who needs to hear what your creative voice has to say today?
And when you create from your true voice, you're not just making, you're making meaning. So you can see that your creative voice is more than style. It's the way your heart and your mind speak through what you make, whether that's your writing, your painting, your music, your business, or the way you style a room or arrange flowers.
[00:06:00] It's personal and it's multifaceted, and it's built over time from your experiences, from your failures, from your added wisdom. So think of it like your creative fingerprint. No one else has one just like yours, and no one else ever will. According to a 2023 Adobe Creative Study,
over 60% of creators say that the most rewarding part of their work is getting to express their authentic self. It's not selling a million copies of something, although that is wonderful and it's not getting likes or going viral. It's just rewarding to know that you are being real and that others are finding goodness and value from the message that you are communicating through your creativity.
And here's the truth. Finding your [00:07:00] voice. It doesn't happen overnight. Your creative voice becomes clearer and more understandable the more you use it. But to use it, you have to know it, and to know it, you have to listen.
That means stepping out of the comfortable, predictable space that you may be stuck in right now. And we call this predictable space, the comfort zone. So let's talk about that comfort zone for a second. Why do we cling to
our comfort zones, and why are we so quick to copy influencers or social media or trends that feel safe or of the moment, especially when it doesn't feel quite right for our tastes and values?
the answer is simple. Because it feels [00:08:00] safe. It's what everybody else is doing. Can you hear your mom saying, um, if everybody jumped off a bridge? Would you jump to Yeah.
your comfort zone is kind of like your couch on a rainy Saturday, woo, feels good. I'll watch a movie, get some popcorn. I'm just gonna binge a little Netflix. But after a while, you start to feel a bit sad for no reason.
Do you know that feeling? Staying in the comfort zone means that your boldest and often your best work will never see the light of day. And it can be because you never allowed yourself to create it or you never allowed yourself to share it. Brene Brown, is. One of my favorite voices who talks about courage and creativity, and she says that vulnerability is the birthplace of [00:09:00] innovation.
The translation, your best work will always feel a little risky, and that's because you got off your couch and out of your comfort zone, and that feels uncomfortable. And being uncomfortable feels risky, and that risk. It brings fear, which makes you want to go back to your couch because fear, who could deny that is stressful.
And when we feel that feeling of discomfort,
you fear failure, judgment of others, you fear that maybe you're not good enough. And then you run back to your couch. But here is the flip side. Staying in your comfort zone. It's not safe. It's stifling, it's mundane, it's boring.
Remember, you already have a unique voice. It's inside you, [00:10:00] but it can't come out if you stay safe on your couch. Who can hear your creative message if you never leave your comfort zone? So I'll ask you, what is keeping you in your comfort zone right now, and what would happen if you just got off your couch and stepped outside?
now, before we continue, let's take a break and hear a word from our sponsor. I wanna give a quick shout out to one of my favorite artistic tools that helps me let my creative voice sing its message loud and proud, and that's. Procreate. Yeah. If you are thinking, yes, I've been wanting to learn how to draw and paint on my iPad with procreate, but I don't know how to start, or if you already have a little procreate knowhow, but you would like [00:11:00] to add some sparkle and shine to the techniques you already know, come
and explore my almost free procreate tutorials that will teach you amazing procreate tips, tricks, and techniques. Come and discover how a simple tutorial can transform the way you draw and paint. Once you learn a technique through one of my step-by-step tutorials, you're gonna realize how quickly these new tips and tools can translate into creating your own amazing artwork with your own creative voice.
Ready to get out of your comfort zone and have some creative fun by learning the amazing power of procreate on your iPad. Yes, you are. Pick out one, two, or more of my tutorials and have a fantastic creative experience.
All you need to do is go to [00:12:00] www dot bdi, create today, and up in the right hand corner where it says menu, click the dropdown menu and choose almost free.
Now, let's get practical. how, do you find your voice? If you are not sure you've ever heard it, here are four steps that will take you closer to your beautifully authentic signature, one of a kind, creative voice. Number one, explore widely. So I want you to step outside of your normal genre, your niche, even your discipline, whatever you wanna call it, and do something unexpected.
Read something old, and then read something new and compare what has changed, what hasn't. Visit people in places that are different from where you live and [00:13:00] how you live. Place yourself in their shoes. Sometimes our comfort zones
keep us from making some amazing friends because they feel odd or threatening to us right now, only because they are different. Then what our comfort zone knows. So it's essential to crosspollinate your creativity, your knowledge, your experiences, your wisdom, so you can understand the world from different points of view.
When you get a broader knowledge of the world, you are going to find that your voice will be ready to sing. Number two. Create freely. So I want you to let go of the outcome, make messy, weird, unfinished stuff. Give yourself permission to play, and this is how your true voice is just going to sneak out when you allow
yourself to [00:14:00] play and experiment and experience different types of creativity, you'll be surprised what calls to you and what you feel called to share about the experiences that you have lived. Number three, reflect often. So I want you to ask yourself, what colors and themes or moods keep showing up in my work?
What am I always trying to say? The obvious is often the hardest thing to see, especially in yourself. This my friend, is where a creative community is extremely helpful. Fellow artists have a tendency to gently point out the obvious in you. They can see your strengths when you can't see the forest for the trees.
I see this so often during our Create Today membership sessions. You see your voice isn't something that you have to invent or [00:15:00] squish yourself into in some weird pinchy shape to become something that feels not quite right, but seems to fit the trends of today. No. Your creative voice is something that you uncover layer by layer, and it transforms as you grow wiser through the years.
It's a beautiful thing, this creative voice of yours. Now, let's assume that you have found your voice or you feel like you're finding your voice. Let's talk a little bit about courage that's gonna help you
really allow your voice to sing and communicate freely. Because once you start to uncover that voice, my friend, you need to use it because if you don't use it, yeah, you'll lose it. And that means doing things that will make you uncomfortable. Because when you have a [00:16:00] message that needs to be shared by your creative voice, it's imperative that you get the word out and that that can feel uncomfortable.
This is where you can feel the eyes of judgment and criticism, or your own inner critic or imposter syndrome saying, who are you to be saying these things? This is where you need to be brave. You've got a message that needs to be shared. Don't run back to your couch and throw that Afghan over your head and hide.
Get the word out. So think about posting your message, even if it feels too honest to be shared or collaborate with someone totally different from you, or give yourself a deadline. And remember the old saying that done is better than perfect. Now I wanna point out that I often say don't give yourself deadlines, but when you are ready to share your voice to the [00:17:00] audience that needs to hear it.
Giving yourself that kind of dare and a deadline, a schedule a date, when you're going to do that release that is going to help you just jump outta the plane and let your parachute loose. Micro DARE is like this, like posting your message or collaborating with someone different or giving yourself a deadline.
These are things that are going to help you move forward A 2022 study in Frontiers in Psychology found that engaging in new behaviors builds both neural flexibility and emotional resilience. That means the more you stretch your voice, the stronger you are going to get and the more resilient you will become.
Your comfort zone may feel safe right now. The edge of that zone, my friend. That is where your growth is. And if you've been hungering [00:18:00] for doing more and growing your creativity and reaching some dreams you have about what you could do, you have to get past that comfort zone. You have to find that edge and push through it.
And when you do, that is where your truest and best work will begin. Now let's take another break, a real quick one for a word from our sponsor. And you know, that's still me. If today's conversation about your creative voice and your comfort zone is hitting home with you, and you'd love to explore this a little deeper.
I want to invite you into the Create Today membership. This is a space where artists and makers and doers like you come together to share progress, cheer each other on and get unstuck without judgment. We have live [00:19:00] workshops, feedback circles, creative prompts, and we have speakers who share some really juicy, creative secrets.
There's activities each month that will keep your momentum going strong. Curious, you should be. This is a great community. Try out the membership for one month for a special introductory price and experience the creative possibilities.
Register for your creative growth at www dot bdi. Create. Today and at the top right corner, activate the menu dropdown and choose membership and coaching. And you'll see a banner with the special introductory pricing and you'll also find a live link in the show notes today. I cannot wait to create today with you together.
So my [00:20:00] friend here is your takeaway for today. If you're not sure what your creative voice sounds like, you do not need to reinvent yourself. You don't need to copy anyone else. You don't need to follow the latest trends. Your creative voice is who you are and what you love to do, and you just need to be brave enough to see yourself and be yourself.
And you need to allow yourself to find a creative outlet that lights you up. Is that painting, weaving, gardening, knitting, pottery, music, sculpture. If you're not sure, just go and experiment and. Play, Have fun being messy and imperfect, and experimental and expressive.
And then start listening to your inner voice. Start creating like no one's watching, and start sharing that work that feels like you, even [00:21:00] if it's imperfect. And I want you to venture away from your comfort zone couch.
Where is the edge of your comfort zone? I want you to wander past it this week and then a little farther past it the next week and the next. Your creative voice is your unique gift to share, and there is a world out there that needs to hear it, but you, you need to be brave and wander past that comfort zone so that your voice can be heard.
If this episode helped you today, would you do me a quick favor, share it with a creative friend, or leave a review or send me a note and let me know what you are doing that is brave with your creative voice. I want to cheer you on, [00:22:00] so until next time, hop off your comfort zone couch. Wander to the end of that comfort zone and then wander a little farther past it until you feel creatively tingly and new.
And then keep experimenting with what your voice has to say and know matter how messy
you get with your new experiences, stay creative my friend.
SHOWNOTES
00:00 Welcome to Create Today with Beth Buffington
01:49 Discovering Your Unique Creative Voice
05:06 The Power of a Strong Creative Voice
07:24 Stepping Out of Your Comfort Zone
12:18 Practical Steps to Find Your Creative Voice
15:30 Embracing Courage and Sharing Your Voice
18:30 Join the Create Today Community
19:58 Final Takeaways and Encouragement
Offerings at BDI Create.Today
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