I have been thinking a lot about my creativity recently, and accidentally or not, I watched a video where the host talked about the words, they were going to use in 2022 to describe the actions they need to take to reach their goals for the year.

That gave me an incentive to look for my own words that could help me take my creativity and my creative work to the next level. Just to let you know, for years I have been stuck creatively, and only recently I have been able to slowly get back to the groove of creative activities that bring me joy.

The words I came up with for me for 2022 are as follows:

• Stepping up – I want and need to step up my efforts to get closer to my dream job. To get to the final destination, I must take very concrete actions and not be afraid of the changes coming with those actions. At this point in time (Jan. 2022), stepping up for me means owning my skills, my knowledge, appreciating who I am, how I have changed and how my desires and needs have grown with me over the years. I associate stepping up with not being afraid to express myself and my ideas, and confidently and comfortably using diverse mediums to showcase my work without obsessive striving for perfection.

• Pushing my Creative Boundaries – being stuck in one spot and constantly waiting for the external force to move my career forwards is disheartening and creates a lot of helplessness, which has been stopping me from taking control over my working life. It is unhealthy and throws off balance the work-life dynamic, making it unsustainable in the long run. Instead of “hoping” and “daydreaming”, I want to be comfortable for instance to pick up a camera and make a video/film without feeling the constant pressure that it needs to look Oscar ready. Instead, I would love to be able (give myself permission) to focus on the fun aspect of my projects. I’m consciously and mindfully working towards rediscovering the fun part of my creativity. The perpetual waiting for someone else (film festivals, founding organisations etc.) leads to permanent discontent. In such scenarios, the power to act and decide is given to someone else, often anonymous, which can feel very depriving. I have the tools to use my creativity much more freely.

• Fearless decision making – this one perfectly ties into the two previous words. Without the actionable decision-making system in place, taking the small steps leading to the ultimate/big change is tricky. To take action, a decision needs to be made and sometimes, making an important life-changing decision is hard for me. I realise that it comes down to a certain comfort level I have been enjoying and the fear of disturbing that comfort because of the unknown awaiting on the other side. Most importantly, what if the grass is not greener over there? Unfortunately, I grew accustomed to making half-decisions, which means that I decide, and halfway through I abandon the path I chose to follow that particular decision. My fear of following through isn’t driven by laziness, but rather fear itself, which goes back to the fact that everything I do needs to be perfect and productive or otherwise, it is a waste of time. Fear is cunningly paralysing, regardless of how strong you might think you are. To introduce gutsy decision processing in my life, I recently began to analyse my past decisions, and I’ve slowly recognised that all my “wrong” decisions led me to where I wanted to be. Unfortunately, I have stopped sending the right signals to my decision-making controls somewhere along the way. When my needs and desires changed, I stuck with the same decisions I made years ago, believing that the outcome I was living in was already a mistake because of the “wrong” decisions I made years ago. Under close examination, my “illogical” processing of the process led to many misconceptions, which were simply untrue. In my case it is of most importance that decisions must be taken consciously and mindfully.

It’s easy to get lost in the everyday reality and forget that things outside of that reality do exist and your dreams and desires are as realistic as the everyday reality, but to achieve them, decisions and compromises, sometimes tricky, need to be made in the process.

Do you have creative words for 2022? Have you ever done an exercise like that before? What was the outcome?