Creativity comes as you achieve your goals in new, original and fun ways. Any planning you have made may not seem creative, but the process of planning itself can become creative and lead to the creativity you seek.

Let’s put this into context…

I started the 5th Spear website as an outlet for music, but simply releasing something once or twice a year won’t encourage anyone to come back and visit the site, so I thought that by blogging I could keep you all up to date with what I’m up to.

My new creative goal became –  ‘Blog More Throughout 2017′

I planned time to research – I needed to both understand why I wanted to blog and how to do it successfully. This lead to planning subjects to write about, and by planning the subjects I decided that the basis for this blog would be creativity.

Through researching creativity, thinking about my own processes and revising advice I had read in the past, I actually came up with more subjects to write about; which lead to more writing and more research… My creativity had sparked.

Already planning had worked and I was writing blog post after blog post. Within no time I had around a years worth of blog content in drafts and new titles, so I needed to plan when I would publish them…

“Each month there will be four blogs related to a subject within creativity which I will publish once a week”

 However…

“Not every month has four weeks within it; some have five”

So I started to think about what I could do with the fifth week…

“Perhaps I could release some new music then?”

Planning blogs had swiftly transformed into planning to write and release new music. I had become more creative by planning to be creative; enabling me to come up with even more new ideas.

You may be wondering however –

“How are you being creative when all you are doing is planning to be creative?”

When you have a plan that is simplified so much that it is easy to achieve, it allows you to be playful again. You are being creative by making that plan, and you are being creative by completing it. The only thing which may stop this process is procrastination and your own discipline. By planning creativity and igniting that spark, you will find discipline to be an old hindrance, as you will be drawn to each simple task or item on the list with excitement; allowing you to easily complete your goal.

Then on to the next.

This is the last of four blogs I have published on the subject of ‘Planning Creativity’ which have been published throughout December. Alongside this I have planned on a new EP to be released in January 2017 (a month with 5 weeks), and will be launching the EP as part of  Independent Venue Week at Gwdihw Cafe Bar in Cardiff. Please come along and say hello.