Creating VS Working – What’s the Difference?

Here is my take on it:

1. Creating is not work for me – it’s a drive from within. It is something I cannot NOT do. It’s an urge, an inner drive. I would do it for free and without any recognition from outside.

2. Work is doing things I don’t necessarily want to do. Like invoicing, editing my book or technical website management.

This question came up for me, because a few people replied to my last email, saying “just take time off and forget about work” while my laptop is being repaired.

These words left me really confused:

As a creator, what I do is not work.

It doesn’t drain me of energy – it provides me with energy.

Here is one reply I sent back to someone:“You see, my work is not work for me – I love being creative, I love writing, shooting/editing videos and photos. It‘s my life blood.It‘s like telling a kid to stop playing when it loves to play. Or to tell someone who loves playing the guitar every day to not play the guitar for a while.I‘m a creator and my laptop (along with my camera) is my instrument, my brush, my pen.I love what I do not because it‘s work, but because it‘s how I express myself.”

For some people, this is hard to grasp. Many of us are still conditioned to separate work, life and passion. But I don’t separate them, they are all one and their boundaries are fluent.

If work is not fun and if you don’t feel passionate about it, then that’s an indicator: you are not fully live in alignment with who you truly are (yet).

That’s ok, we are all at different stages in our journeys through life.

AND I invite you to realize that you have the power to shift that – even if limiting beliefs hold you back.

The first shift is to go from being a consumer to being a creator: consume less, create more. It doesn’t matter what you create, what matters is that you use that authentic energy within you and release it.

Energy wants to be moved and released.

The urge to create is a hunger for expression. I almost think it’s something that cannot be taught or willfully acquired. You either have this need, this fire in you or you don’t. 

There are some cases where people don’t allow themselves to feel this hunger because they have been taught and programmed growing up to suppress their passions and obsessions. That’s why the process of self-awareness is so essential – it will show you all your shadows (especially as a creator).

I create because it’s therapeutic, it’s cathartic, it’s a release from deep inside. Creating is medicine, it’s therapy. It heals me and sometimes also others. It’s a vehicle for personal growth and for taking an inward journey outwardly.

That’s why, when I didn’t have my laptop for several days, I improvised using my iPad as a writing tool and I went all out on drawing a ton of mind maps of my creative ideas. It was awesome.

And it was also awesome when the Apple store called me earlier than expected to inform me that I could pick up my creation machine (aka laptop).

Here is your takeaway:

1. How can you use creating as a form of medicine?
2. How can you infuse more of you into what you create?
3. How can you spark that creative fire within you and get it to blaze?