5 Powerful Steps To Unleashing Your Creative Self

There is a thread of certainty that runs through many lives. It is sensed as a measured and anticipated rhythm of predictability built upon our notions of how things have been and how they will continue to be.

While this is comforting and provides a sense of continuity to our lives, it is also limiting and not conducive to unleashing our creative selves. Here are five steps you can take to break the mold of predictability and expand your horizons in ways you never imagined.

1. Acknowledge And Release The Past

The mundane concerns of existence that propel us through our days often leads to a deadening of exhilaration; a striping away of the possibility for anything out of the ordinary.

Walking in a haze of memories, expectations, assumptions, guilts, worries - bombardments on our psychological and emotional centers - we are often oblivious to moments of complete amazement and wonder. We are wholly unaware and uninterested in seeing what is already there, but not yet recognized.

By bringing the preceding moment into this moment, you are unfairly coloring the outcome of this moment to look the same as before. Creating true change in your life begins by acknowledging and releasing the past, whether it be good or bad.

In fact, see the bad things for what they really are: revelations of what is truly good. For if life were all rosy and nothing bad ever happened, how would you know things were rosy? You would have no reference point; nothing to compare rosy against.

Release the past and you are free from a linear, pre-ordained future.

2. Say Thank You

Appreciate your life for what it has been. Give yourself a pat on the back for everything that brought you to this exact moment. Congratulate yourself on doing the best you could.

Give thanks to yourself, for the people around you, and to the source of life that allows you to say, "Here I Am!"

Practice sincere gratitude several times throughout your day. In this way you are able to stay connected with your creative energies and recognize abundance in the world.

3. Create Your Day

Imagine yourself awakening each morning to exclaim, "This is how I shall create my day!" How many people aspire to create moments that shape the day around them, rather than allowing the moments of their yesterdays to serve up the ordinary menu of today?

When you awake each morning, start out by deciding on the outcome of the day. We have been taught from an early age that the outside world determines our actions and our state of mind. This is not true. You have freewill. Use it.

Decide for yourself how you will feel and what you will accomplish. Do you want to be happy that day? Do you want to begin writing a operatic ballad? It doesn't matter what it is. Just declare it. Simple as that.

If you don't know what to declare on a given day, always start with happiness. Affirm your decision to be happy. Remember that happiness is a state of being, not a reaction. Don't allow outside events determine whether you will be happy. Create the commandment in your mind and you will find that Happiness exists in the strangest of places.

Fully expressing your creative self takes practice, especially if you are in the habit of reacting to the moments of your day. You are rewiring the neural connections in your brain. You are breaking old connections. With practice, creativity becomes a habit.

4. Expect The Unexpected

Consider the clarity and simple freedom that comes from being unattached to the unfolding of a moment in your life. How does it feel to be an observer; an inconsequential witness? Most of us have experienced these special moments to some degree. Can you recall such moments? Do you remember how it felt to be completely in the world, but not an immediate player within it? Simply watching. Uninterested. Non-judgmental.

At these times it is not unlike staring without prejudice into a fish tank. It makes no difference in what direction the fish swim. It matters not the size of the bubbles percolating from the bottom. It's of no concern the manner in which the water ripples on the surface.

If the moments of your life were observed in such a manner, you could then decide