Creativity Is Not A Crime

Most people are more creative than they think. Not only are there simple ways to bring your inner artist back to life, there are also compelling personal and professional reasons why it’s important to give it a shot. It’s a blind spot that might be costing you.

“I’m not creative.” What most people usually mean when they say that is that they don’t rate themselves as a professional artist in some traditional creative outlet. They’ve fallen for the lie that unless their work is on a commercial par with somebody famous, then it’s better for all concerned to just keep a lid on it.

Everyone is creative. Not everyone expresses creativity in the same way.

One of the best books I’ve ever read about creativity is Orbiting the Giant Hairball
by the late Gordon MacKenzie. He observed that creativity is conditioned out of most kids before they get to sixth grade. School teaches us a couple of primary, if unwritten, rules:

1. There’s only ONE right answer.
2. NEVER stand out, unless it’s for a pre-approved reason.

A second grade art project taught me these rules the hard way.

Using scissors and glue, we were to make construction paper “frames” for watercolors we had done earlier. From a previous class I remembered a mesmerizing glitter demonstration the teacher had done. Certain that it would make my frame a masterpiece, I ran to the supply cupboard, grabbed a jar of silver glitter and started… creating.

Vatican treasures had nothing on my masterful scrolls and stars.

Our teacher was patrolling the desks and apparently found what she’d been policing for when she got to mine. She had me on multiple counts of aggravated creativity. It was bad enough that I’d gone beyond the scope of the assignment, but worse that I’d gone to the cupboard on my own without running it up the chain of command first. She made a loud, public case of it to deter other young thought criminals in the making, and it worked.

Here’s a truth that took me decades to rediscover.

Sometimes it’s okay to add glitter. Yes, it takes discipline to run a business, but it’s a costly mistake to check our creative impulses at the door (or squash those of others). The key is balance. Here are three practical strategies to reclaim your creativity:

1. Look for more than one right answer. Shift your context. Challenge your assumptions. Ask radical questions about the issue at hand. Steve Jobs refused to allow his thinking to become constrained by convention, just because others were focused on being incrementally better at the same old thing.
2. Become an active observer of everything. Our brains are wired to filter out details that might contain hidden value. For example, a brick is more than just a red rectangle. Look closely and you’ll see that it has infinite textures, colors and surface variations. So do your opportunities.
3. Remember that there are phases to the creative process. Allow yourself (or your organization) opportunities to get all the way through the idea-gathering phase before you start editing and implementing. Most people engage their inner critic long before the gatherer has a fair chance to find the richest alternatives.

Quit beating yourself up.

Creativity is linked to genuine primal fears. We’re tribal by nature. Standing out in the wrong way and being ostracized from the tribe once meant certain death. Today it’s time for an updated perspective. You won’t be thrown out of the village and eaten by predators for putting glitter on your art project.

• Making room for creativity in your life renews your energy to get things done.
• It helps you stay grounded in your true vision and purpose.
• It opens unexpected doors to personal and professional abundance.

You’re applying creativity to the everyday challenges of life, work and relationships all the time, whether you realize it or not. Even if you never write a bestseller or paint a masterpiece or sell out a concert hall, your whole life is a worthy work of art, so put it out there in your own way and keep on creating.

Question: What creative instincts have you been putting on the back burner? Can you recall a time in your life when following them paid off?