What is creativity? People often associate this question with artistic abilities. Maybe they remember art classes where they didn’t feel as talented as their peers. You might hear answers like: “I can just draw stick figures”… The truth is that creativity is found in our daily living. From the quality of our thoughts to the way we improvise solutions to emergencies. It’s innate and has helped us to grow, but frequently taken for granted. Still, it’s with us to guide our path.
Remember occasions when you learned something new, fun, and that with practice you developed your own style (e.g. dancing). Right there was your creativity hand in hand with enthusiasm… effervescent energy! It’s like returning to our childhood wherein we learned by playing. Ahhh…wonderment! Our minds weren’t cluttered by “I can’t” or the “yes, but” stuff we’ve accumulated into adulthood, and which stunts our growth. To the contrary, creativity stimulates our growth, especially when we make mistakes. To view mistakes as essential to expanding our wisdom is encouraging. Mistakes simply become stages in the creative process that is living.
Why have skills without keeping alert to opportunities for expressing and sharing them? They are your riches and there are more ways to serve others than you might have imagined. Consider creating a list of things that you enjoy doing, places and experiences that excite you. Notice “ingredients” in common between the items on your list and ideas may emerge to combine skills. Creativity is delicious… squeeze the juice out of its fruit!
To resolve an emergency, reflection allowed you to notice alternatives to put a plan into action. Unfortunately, creativity can also manifest itself through impulsive, paralyzing decisions. This happens when fears of failure or success convince us not to take risks. Fears create excuses… poor use of our precious creativity. Move forward, mistakes and all, even if fears “visit” and bombard you with stories to please everyone else’s expectations. Live your life because no one can do it for you! You have the power to create excellence in your life. Decide, begin now. You deserve it.
Thanks to creativity and enthusiasm our ancestors turned ideas into today’s many meals, vehicles, devices… you name it! Instead of paralyzing obstacles, they saw opportunities to use intuition and make the most of what they had in their hands. We all have that innate ability.
Would you agree that life is an art, a creative process?