Today's post is mostly written for my creative peeps, but may pertain to you, if you don't consider yourself as such, too. I remember as a first grader each class was brought into the cafeteria to take a test. There we were, spread out with dividers between each person. As a first grader, you don’t really think about why you’re doing something, you just do what you’re told. We were then given a piece of paper with a bunch of shapes and we had to finish the drawing of the shape into what we thought it looked like. Not knowing any better I just drew what I thought that shape should be. Apparently my drawings were quite different from everyone else’s.
It turns out this was actually a “creative competition” and because of my “unique” test results I was put into a special program for kids with large imaginations. It was called “Odyssey of the Mind” or “OM” . Looking back as an adult having went through this it was such an awesome program and I was lucky to be apart of it for a few years. At the time I hated it…just like I hated school, my teachers or anyone who told me how to do things… I never understood why I couldn’t do things my way to achieve the same result… why did I have to do it their way? I was a very creative child who loved and did very well at art and using my imagination and who hated the traditional boring classes that were considered to be more important like Math, Science etc. I'm sure parent teacher conferences were interesting for my parents, my mom was always told by teachers that "April marches to the beat of her own drummer". I am a left brainer through and through.
As I grew older I realized that I was not the same as most of my peers nor did I think like them either. That scared me. I started acting more like them and trying to be “normal”. I remember having to take the creative test again and copying off of my friend Rae Lynn because I didn't want to be the "unique" one. I had turned into a girl just trying to fit in with everyone else {ooooh if only I knew then what I know now}. For some reason I saw my uniqueness as a bad thing, I think because I didn't understand how it was a good thing? Both my parents are very creative but they never stressed how important my creativity is… I think they faced the same thing I did, they didn’t realize how valuable it really is in life because it just comes easy for them. Needless to say I wasn’t asked to be apart of OM anymore, which at the time I was quite happy about.
As an adult now living off my own creativity, I am forever trying to put myself back into that mentality that I had in first grade. Not caring what others were doing and just doing what I think is cool… later dubbed “developing my own style”. This is a scary thing when I’m trying to build a business and a brand all while staying true to myself.
I recently watched a TED talk {I love the inspiration they provide} and a line of what this one entrepreneur said really stuck with me. “Do what you’re about”
DUH!!!! why hadn’t I been doing this all along? It's so simple. Here I am watching seminar after seminar about "developing my own style" when all I've really had to do is just ignore what everyone else is doing?! Perfectly simple, I don’t know why that was so hard for me to figure out, but at least now I've been reminded and moving forward this will be my mantra. After all, your own thoughts, views, personality, decisions etc are what sets you apart from everyone else!
Peace, Love & You Doing You,
April K
