Embrace your strengths and inner child. This month, create.

One of my favorite pastimes when I was young was to take a notebook, climb up a tree in the giant yard my parents’ house sat on, and write. I played with poetry, novels, songs and journaling. I have a box full of journals and notebooks from various points in my life that I have carted around from my parents’ house to my college dorm, to apartments in Murray Hill, Hell’s Kitchen, and now my bedroom closet on the Upper West Side. I haven’t opened them in years, and often cringe at the thought of what I might find in some of them. I wish I had saved documents from my old computers. They would surely have that novel I was writing in high school that was loosely based on my angsty teen years and my relationship with my mom. Then there was that novel I started while working the late shift at CBS News in my early twenties when I decided I would write my own version of The Devil Wears Prada. It started with a love affair gone wrong with an opening scene of the main character arriving back in New York City after flying to the midwest to confess her love to a “friend” who laughs in her face at the admission. Also semi-autobiographical. What can I say, I made a lot of...interesting decisions in my 20s. 

But this is all to say that my interest in writing, in creativity, has been with me from a young age. From the time I could read, I voraciously sped through pages of escapism in various chapter books and then novels. Even now, when I am particularly stressed, I find nothing more relaxing than losing myself in a book. Or if I’m not fully depleted, by journaling. When I became a mom, my journaling extended to pages and pages of letters to my sons that I plan to someday give to them. Maybe at their college graduation? Their weddings? Their 40th birthdays? When they have their first babies? I’m saving them for some day in the future when they would be able to appreciate my blurry early years of motherhood and my wishes for them and who they will grow up to be. 

What started as a love of reading and writing was also supported by an early love of photography and art classes. From spending hours in the dark room in middle and high school developing my own photos, to my first time seeing a live-shot for the local news when I was a college intern. That experience hooked me on TV for a significant period of time. Suffice to say, cultivating creative outlets has fueled both my personal and professional life for as long as I can remember. 

Last month we focused on building your voice. This month, we’re going to take it a step further and focus on creating. When you know who you are, and where your strengths lie, you can create space for yourself that is authentic to you. Whether that’s building a career that allows for your own creativity, or building a life that is truly fulfilling for you, we’re bringing our focus here for the month. We’ll have an entire month’s worth of advice, insights, and examples with this theme in mind. 

Here’s a preview; we’ll have a breakdown on Instagram -- arguably the most creative social platform-- and how you can level up your content for it, and a primer on content strategy. MT Deco founder Melissa Blum will share how she finds creative solutions to issues as a business owner. And we’ll have another installment of the Power of Influence with a look at the oh-so-creative Mosheh Oinouno who has transformed himself from TV-news executive to influential Instagram creator. 

As always, we have some truly fantastic contributors lined up. Megan Collins of the Manicured Shelf is back with another fabulous reading list on creativity (and rumor has it now that she’s fully vaccinated she’s going to add a manicure to her manicured shelf and we are HERE FOR IT. In fact, it’s the color inspo behind all our content this month). We’ll also hear from successful lifestyle blogger Tillie Adelson (of My Stiletto Life) on how she’s created her empire, and what you can learn from her.  

We hope this inspires you to cultivate your creative side, to remember the joys you found as a child, to build a life you’re proud of, or simply to try something new. You might just surprise yourself. We’ll be here, as always, cheering you on.