The power of creativity isn’t often included in the lists of powerful skills and habits. Normally we think of skills like confidence, persistence, and charisma. Creativity is often viewed as a side effect of being an amazing person with great ideas, and not something that can be honed and developed.
Truly, creativity is what drives some people to achieve wonderful works of art, science, and innovation. Creativity is in fact very powerful and should be one of the most powerful skills developed over time.
Think about some of the most impactful leaders, movers, and shakers that you know of. These people shaped the world around them and left lasting impacts on their respective industries. I can almost guarantee that they developed their expertise and influence through applied creativity. Taking what other think to be true and expanding on, or even going counter to that is exactly what leads to serious results.
When I look at my own views on creativity, and I’m obviously a little biased, I think to myself about what ways I can incorporate creativity into my life and develop powerful changes around me.
It can be in my personal life, my professional life, my spiritual life, or anywhere really. There is not a single aspect of my life that cannot be improved upon and made better by applying even the smallest level of creativity. I think the same applies to any area of your life as well.
When you look at creativity as that driving force and with that much power, it’s hard to deny the fact that creatives do shape the world around them.
As you go about your day, look to areas that may be in your blind spot, areas you may have overlooked or assumed were completely optimized. Those are the areas ripe for a creative revolution. Those are the areas that we take for granted as being complete, when they are actually far from it.
Erik Tyler says
I find that most people would like to be creative, but report that they are simply — not. And I do believe that there are certain people who are inherently more creative than others. But I also agree with you, Ryan, that nearly anyone can develop greater creativity than what they started with (I say “nearly,” because there are the rare people who are so left-brained that even the pursuit of creativity “does not compute,” only the quest for more knowledge and synthesis of that knowledge).
The problem, then, is HOW does one develop more creativity, not just convincing him that he can. For a person whose norm is to be uncreative, It is difficult I think to receive a prompt like “look to areas that may be in your blind spot, areas you may have overlooked or assumed were completely optimized” without feeling frustrated rather than inspired. It’s sort of that “not knowing what you don’t know” conundrum. I actually don’t think this — I know it, because I’ve had people tell me this very thing time and time again.
So part of the problem is that self-labeled “uncreative” people do not believe they are creative or can be. And your article does a good job of opening the door that perhaps there is hope. From there, however, how does such a person actually become more creative?
I’d suggest a couple “starters” for anyone who needs that jumpstart:
1. Do new things. Go new places. Try new foods. Listen to music you don’t normally listen to — or even music you hate. Watch a movie at random without reading the synopsis. Just do something out of the usual routine. Creativity is seeing new connections. One way to see new connections — is to connect to new things.
2. Puzzle solve in an open-ended way. For instance, get in the habit of taking two unrelated things or words and finding a connection. For instance, two of the first things I see right now in my line of vision are a blender and a small statue of the Eiffel Tower. So I could write down “blender” and “Eiffel Tower” and make it my job (even if it takes a while at first — all day?) to find a connection between them, or several. For me, that task is not a hard one; but for many, it will be enough of a challenge to spark the beginnings of creativity. Do this on a regular basis and you will be forming unexpected connections, not only for this “game” but in other areas of life.
Ryan Bonaparte says
Thank you Erik for your great and thoughtful response. I like that you looked to tackle the problem of “how” more than the “what”. In a few of my first posts here, I tried to push people to view themselves as creatives and to start doing things to foster that creative bent. Here and here. Check them out, and let me know what you think! If I missed the mark, I’m happy to write a follow up.
Erik Tyler says
Hey, Ryan. I’ll hop over and read those. However, BEFORE I do, there is no “missing the mark” as a blogger / writer. There is only an ongoing process of sharing. As much as I wish everyone could read my entire body of written work to have all possible context — most won’t. We are adding pieces, little by little, to our readers’ thought process (which is why even REPEATING ideas isn’t bad, because new readers never read the first time you hit a topic three years ago, etc.). And even if there are the few die-hard followers who’ve read everything we’ve ever said — there is always more to say.
So I’m expecting, in reading your past posts there, I’ll likely find overlap on some of what I threw out there in my reply above. My thoughts, whether writing my own stuff or commenting on others’, are always geared toward the reader who may only stop by “this once” (with, of course, the hope that it’ll be enough to entice them back again).
Adam Smith says
Great reminder here that creativity is for every part of life, Ryan. When you think of it as “There is not a single aspect of my life that cannot be improved upon and made better by applying even the smallest level of creativity.”, you will live life with more awareness to improving the world around you.