What does creativity mean? It means different things to different people. What does it mean to you?

 

When I ask the question to my clients ‘Do you consider yourself to be creative?’ for some the response is a look of surprise or shock, with a follow-up answer; ‘I used to be, but not really any more’! Life takes over right, but what stops us, for some I believe confidence can take a hit, along with judging ourselves too harshly. Not allowing ourselves to just do it, regardless of the outcome. For others, they feel it may not be valued or indeed they may not value the outcome themselves! Long-held beliefs that creativity will not get you anywhere unless you are extremely good at it!

 

How can we learn to embrace our creativity and weave it into our lives?

 

Creativity occurs whenever our minds are open to making new connections. Coming out of our comfort zone and becoming aware of what is around us. We often go along in our daily lives and don’t notice our environment, most of us are looking down at our phones, scrolling through the latest news feed or recent posts. Take the time to disconnect just for once and see what unfolds in front of you.

 

Find the deeper motivation within yourself and your work life, recall a time when you were creative how did that feel? Often people mistake being creative with painting, drawing sculpting, the more visible aspects of creativity, however, there is so much more such as creative thinking, problem-solving, taking risks, trying something new and pushing boundaries, not accepting what is in front of you. Steve Jobs was quoted as saying “Creativity is just connecting things. When you ask creative people how they did something, they feel a little guilty because they didn’t really do it, they just saw something”

Creativity is a process and a mindset that can be applied to any aspect of our lives as long as we give it a chance.

 

Disrupt your daily habits and thought patterns by perhaps taking a different route to work, try new food, doing something different that you have always wondered about. As humans we like to be comfortable we get set in our ways and don’t like to be out of control. By pushing ourselves to do different, then different will feel good and from that emerges new ideas and a fresh approach. Workplaces are now cited as saying that creativity is considered one of the top skills that they look for in employees, this skill helps people by adapting better to the rapidly changing nature of work and all the complexity that this brings.

 

What inspired me to write this, I was observing my daughter and husband (my daughter is 26) paint a picture. They both kept talking about how they would like to paint, finally, they bought the paints, brushes, canvas and they started! Watching the pair of them immerse themselves into the canvas, colors and teamwork was so special, and guess what they produced this colorful beautiful blue bird. It’s not perfect, it’s not a masterpiece but the joy that came with the creation says it all!

 

“Creativity is simply giving our brain the space it needs to imagine things differently, to see different possibilities, patterns and connections”