Creativity isn’t just for people who make their living making art. In her best-seller The Artist’s Way, author, composer and teacher Julia Cameron says tapping into your creativity gives life flavor. Cameron is often considered an expert on creative practice, and she has taught her methods of unlocking creativity at The Smithsonian, The New York Times and New York Open Center. The Artist’s Way creativity groups have formed across the United States and around the world, putting her practical creativity tools to work for men and women in all professions.

Why do you feel it’s important for people to tap into their creativity and stay actively creative?
I think that unless people are tapped into their creativity, life can become sort of a droning experience. I think that when people are tapped into their creativity, life has a flavor of adventure.

I believe that we are all creative—that it’s part of our spiritual DNA—and that in order for us to be happy and fulfilled as people, we need to be happy and fulfilled creatively. And so I don’t think it’s a matter of only certain jobs being creative; all people are creative, and unless people are fulfilling themselves creatively, they can feel stymied, stuck, depressed.

How do you suggest people kick-start their creativity if they lack clear direction?
Well, there’s a basic tool that I recommend to everyone who is trying to work on their creativity, and that is morning pages, which are three pages of longhand morning writing about any topic. I find that when people work with morning pages, they are moved into working on their creative projects.

Morning pages are about anything and everything. They are not like a journal. With a journal, you might set a specific goal: I’m going to write everything I feel about Jeffrey. With morning pages, Jeffrey comes and goes. It’s like you have a little whisk broom, and you’re taking it into all the corners of your consciousness.

It’s worth it to try. I would urge people to give morning pages a fair try. Twelve weeks of doing them brings about a huge change. So I would say give it 12 weeks. I think the pages very quickly become positively addicting, and I think people will notice a huge shift in their lives.

As you work with morning pages, you probably will become clear as to an area that feels challenging and exciting to you. And that’s how you learn where you want to go forward. I think that i f someone has an interest in something, they quite likely have a talent in that area.

Other tools to kick-start creativity?
There are two other tools that I think are very valuable. One of them is called an artist date, and that is a one-time-a-week, festive, solo expedition where you do something that is adventurous and pushes the envelope a little bit and makes you feel more alive. And then the second tool is very simple, and that’s walking. Going for about a 20-minute walk not only stretches out your legs and body, it stretches out your mind.

What are some of the most common blocks to creativity?
I think people tell themselves they don’t have enough time. They keep waiting for a vast savannah of unmarked time to be creative in, and, of course, most of us never get a vast savannah of unmarked time. So I try to teach tools that allow people to be creative in the life they’ve actually got.

I also think, a lot of times, people will say it’s too expensive. And what they don’t realize is that, very often, support can come to them without their spending money. If you want to direct a feature fi lm, you may be looking for more money, but many forms of creativity actually don’t require a cash outlay.

I would say perfectionism is a very common block. If you have a room full of people and you say, “Number from one to 10 [on paper], and ask yourself, ‘If I didn’t have to do it perfectly, I’d try....’ ” People will be able to come up with 10 adventures they are not allowing themselves to have because they believe they have to do them perfectly. And the minute you take away perfectionism, the minute you say, Anything worth doing is worth doing badly, people begin to have more freedom. And, in fact, when they allow themselves to try something, it often turns out far better than they could have imagined.

And I think people are worried about what other people will think, what their family will think. Morning pages teach us to be worried about what we ourselves think. And we may find that it’s important for us to take another risk in order to feel we have self respect.

How does tapping into your creativity positively benefit you?
I think that when people are dodging their creativity, there’s an inner sense of failure. I think that we respect ourselves when we take risks, and I think that when we dodge risks, we don’t respect ourselves. When you start to work on your creativity, you are, in effect, working on your whole life.

I feel like my faith and my creativity are inseparable. I believe creativity is an act of faith. You know, you have to have faith to step forward onto a blank page. You have to have faith to step forward onto a stage or to put paint up to an easel. So I believe that as I improve my conscious contact with a power greater than myself, I am improving my creativity. And as I improve my creativity, I am improving my conscious contact.

Julia Cameron is the author of more than 25 books, including the international best-seller The Artist’s Way, which has been published in a dozen languages and has sold more than two million copies. Over the last 35 years, Cameron has written novels, short stories, plays, musicals, screenplays and poetry. Her latest book is Faith and Will: Weathering the Storms of Our Spiritual Lives. Join The Artist’s Way online creativity groups at www.theartistsway.com.