Let’s start by thinking about what creativity actually is. Once the business sector realised the benefits of improving levels of creativity in their workforce, the entire concept became a discipline and many very intelligent people started saying a lot of things – often complicated things – about it. You can now go and study it at university. But really, as a concept, creativity is just about taking inspiration from various aspects of your life, processing it, putting something of yourself into it and giving birth to something new.
Read What is Creativity? It might just be more simple than you think
Creativity is not magic, you don’t need a PhD to do it. This website is not about teaching you “the highly sophisticated art of being creative” it is about showing how simple it is for anyone to use a few more creative processes in their life and how we all will benefit from doing so.
Visit 10 Common Myths About Creativity to help dispel any reservations you might have.
Personally, being creative will not only help you contribute more to your life and the lives of those around you – it will, by changing the ways you think, allow you to see options, solutions and problems you didn’t know existed. Let me share a quote from the famous poet Donald Rumsfeld (reference):
There are known knowns; there are things we know we know. We also know there are known unknowns; that is to say we know there are some things we do not know. But there are also unknown unknowns — the ones we don’t know we don’t know
Creativity will help you see the unknown unknowns that others don’t.
The thing is, we all know and do the kinds of things that ignite creativity – we just don’t always make the causal connection. Becoming more creative is often about finding these things – not learning them from scratch.
For example, read Why You Should Leave Things Until the Last Minute
For these reasons, my approach to inspiring creativity is highly environmentally-based. Creativity can easily be learnt but it is harder to teach (see this forbes.com article). To be more creative you have to surround yourself in it. Many studies will show, the people and places and atmospheres we place ourselves in have enormous affect on our minds.
Read Is Beautiful Space Always Creative Space? for more information on your environment. Or learn about the influence people around you can have.
I hope this is enough to inspire you. This page will grow and update frequently – please come back soon!
Feature image courtesy of Perry McKenna
