My interest in creativity coaching began more than ten years ago when I was teaching a Creative Process course at the Vancouver Film School and became aware of creativity coaching guru Eric Maisel’s work. I thought creativity coaching would be a great credential and skill set to inform my teaching and consulting work.
But ultimately my decision to enroll in the CCA program had more to do with the heart than with career concerns. Seeing my enormously creative younger brother and other gifted friends giving up on their creative dreams in midlife sparked my passion to provide support and inspiration to people who feel they’re too old and it’s too late.
I can sometimes be one of them, and so I was and continue to be my steadiest client! While I’ve had a successful career as a writer/editor/script consultant, and it’s work that I enjoy, my first passion is singing. I sang before I talked, I won prizes in music festivals, my uberstrict music-loving Grade 5 teacher forgave my unremarkable Social Studies grade by uncharacteristically declaring, “You’re going to be a singer. You don’t need to know Social Studies.”
Ironically, I began my professional life as a Junior High Social Studies teacher before heading for the exit four years later and joining the film industry, a more interesting and rewarding career avenue. Derailed by circumstances, eroded by fear and neglect, any thought of a singing career had long since expired.
But my passion for singing refused to be denied. In my late 50s, I began taking singing lessons, I joined a gospel choir, I even worked up the courage to sing a blues song, aptly titled In My Girlish Days, at a concert that coincided with my 65th birthday. A feisty woman of my age came up to me afterwards and said, “I want to be you.”
Me too! It’s the “you” we all want to be. The “you” who pursues what brings us joy, without any concern about career or cash or recognition. The “you” who discovers that doing what we love fuels all aspects of our lives.
What creative endeavor makes you happy? If you don’t know, sit with that question for a few days and see what arises. Maybe it’s something that you left behind when you “grew up.” Whatever it is, I suggest you reclaim it and begin doing it again – in whatever way you can. Age is irrelevant. Creativity is our birthright. Happiness knows no bounds.
I’m going to go sing now!