Long before I started working for myself, I worked full-time in a non-creative role. When I started the business, I decided to continue working full-time as I knew it would take some time for the business to grow. Aside from this, I realised that the business may not necessarily generate regular stream of income like my day job and I needed the regular income to pay the bills. It's simple, paid bills leads to a clear head and having a clear head gives me the freedom to create.

Living in London, means seeing almost three-fourth of your income go towards rent, so it's safe to say, having a day job makes good business sense for a small craft business like mine. Even when I make little to no sales, I am still able to create work I enjoy and not create work just for the sake of making money. In the process of creating work I enjoy, I've had some work commissioned which ended up being more rewarding than the crafts I made to sell.

My decision to be self-employed and have a full-time day job, is by no means unique to me, as most of the self-employed people I know do exactly the same. Without the privilege of a day job, I don't think I would have been able to set-up a business, let alone run and maintain one.

I have learnt through my day job the art of self-discipline, as no matter what happens, whether good or bad, I must show up and deliver the job I am paid to do. It means even when I've had a busy week crafting back to back, attending workshops and fulfilling orders, I still have to be on my utmost best when I turn up for work, no matter how tired I am.

I have also adapted the discipline I gleaned from my day job to my craft making, as it has helped me immensely, especially when working to strict deadlines. Personally, I find that it is a necessity to have a day job until the business grows and one is in a position to give up the day job.
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Had great fun at the wellbeing festival today at Cooltan Arts making different crafts such as embroidery, card making and recycling old materials into new crafts. It's great to see arts and crafts  being used to improve mental health and wellbeing.

I recently had a conversation with a fellow artist who was convinced 'creativity can't be taught'. He felt creativity is an innate ability which someone exhibits naturally and reckons no amount of education can make someone creative. After our conversation, I started to think and ask myself this question, 'Can creativity be taught? Or is it an innate ability?'

Before I could explore this question further, I had to reflect on my own creative journey to ascertain what creativity means to me. Looking back, I realised I had some natural skills that I knew how to use intuitively without being taught. Yet, there were other skills I had to learn in a taught environment which helped me improve creatively on the long-term.

A good example of this, is learning how to gain new inspiration from one's surroundings, which is a great tool to have when experiencing creative blocks. There are many more creative skills that can be taught to help foster innovative thinking, that can in turn, lead to pioneering inventions. Therefore, I strongly believe creativity can be taught.

It is also important to note, that creativity is not in any way limited to the Arts. It's a process that can be applied to any works of life, as innovative ideas are  prerequisites for any organisation looking to grow. Even society at large, can reap immense benefits from creativity as it's a great problem solving tool.

Whilst researching this topic, I came across the You Tube video below by Sir Ken Robinson entitled 'Can creativity be taught?' and was glad to find I wasn't the only one who thinks creativity can and should be taught. It's a very insightful video and I hope you find it useful. Let's keep creating and keep teaching creativity so we can add value to ourselves and others!