“But I’m not creative!”
Ohhhh, shut up! Ok ok a bit harsh, I know. I apologize. But seriously, I’d be a hypocrite if I said that didn’t cross my mind every time I hear that.
Creativity in my mind is basically connecting the dots of a situation. You need to get home, so your drive your car down certain roads, you create a route for yourself. Now as you as time goes on, yes the route may no longer feel creative, but that doesn’t mean you can’t keep being creative. You always have the chance to try a new route, the problem is most people don’t. They get stuck in ‘their ways’ that they lose the excitement of creativity because they become too busy just surviving.
True, everlasting creativity in my mind is a mix of curiosity and connection. It’s about finding more than one way to solve a problem. It’s about expanding your mind to see different perspectives. It’s about trying new approaches to see if they work or not. The funny thing about staying creative is that the more you push yourself to do, the better you become, and the better you become the more opportunities you can create because even though most people may not see an opportunity in a situation, you are so curious about finding connections, you’ll probably end up finding one. And it’s that connection that pushes you ahead in your game.
Every day I mix curiosity and connection to develop creative opportunities for #GameOn. I find ways to have everyone win in a situation, so that #GameOn can continue to create it’s vision, and many times the wins are not very obvious. I have to really expand my mind to see many different perspectives. As I do though, I get better and better at it, making it easier and easier to find creative opportunities.
Another way I practice expanding my creative mind is by creating analogies related to my mission of being a great leadership coach. I’ll look at everyday situations and get curious as to how they connect with leadership. From there, I create an analogy/metaphor (now you know how I can blog everyday about stuff) and voila, I’ve increased my creative capacity. It’s so simple, yet so many people don’t do it.
So here’s my challenge to you, start training your creative mind. Pick a passion you have and start relating everyday situations to it. Be curious to find the connection point, or in other words look for analogies. It might be tough at first, but if you keep at it you’ll become incredibly skilled at it and you’ll be able to transfer that creative capacity over to your personal and professional life.
As always, it’s up to you to put in the work to reap the rewards. Go for it!
“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.”
– Steve Jobs
