Many years ago I first heard the phrase “What we are is God’s gift to us; what we make of ourselves is our gift to God.” We are the creators of our how we live the life we’re given – arguably not the things that happen to us, but how we perceive and respond to those things.
I have met many people who don’t think they are creative, but I have never met anyone who actually is not creative. We are all creative. Creativity takes as many forms as the imagination can conjure, and each person, group or entity has their own “thing” to create, and their own way of expressing or manifesting that “thing.” It is our nature, a part of our DNA. Many say it’s a part of our divinity.
Yet creativity is a risk. Whether in the arts, business, politics, sports – or any endeavor – creativity requires being vulnerable. We have to be open and receptive, while also being courageous and expressive. Creativity in life is a way of being and doing that says: “I am committed to take the risks and challenges necessary to manifest my goal, my calling, my destiny. I choose to live fully alive as the co-creator of my experience and my world.”
To help inspire you about how to create your life as you desire it, here are some questions to consider:
The first and perhaps most critical way to increase your creativity is to be open. Closing the door on any aspect of your thinking, your emotions and energy, or your willingness to act limits your ability to create. Here are a few suggestions to work on in order to stay open:
Open Mind
• Let go of critical judgments of good/bad, right/wrong when it comes to ideas. Let ideas flow unfettered at first. Then discern and cull the ones that inspire you.
• Stretch your thinking. Rather than asking, “Can this work?” ask yourself, “What would it take for this to work?” Think positively – anything is possible.
• Change your perspective. See things from other points of view.
• Be imaginative and curious. Much of what we now take for granted didn’t exist 100 years ago.
Open Heart
• Be compassionate. Creativity is often inspired by the desire to help others resolve their problems and ills.
• Relax, meditate, pray. Stress is one the greatest inhibitors of creativity.
• Be honest about your emotional states and take responsibility for dealing with your emotions. Anger, pain, fear, joy, etc. can spark creativity when they are embraced and handled appropriately; denied or acted out, they are often destructive.
• Be generous, forgiving, authentic and have integrity. Connect with others and be the kind of partner/friend/worker you would like to have in your life. To be “a bigger person” than you thought you could be in your relationships forces you to be creative.
Open Hands
• Act “as if” what you want to create can be done. For athletes, running a 4-minute mile was once considered impossible; now it’s considered slow. If it can be conceived, it can be achieved.
• Be persistent, and “try, try again.” Creativity usually happens in stages, and often progress isn’t even noticed until late in the game.
• Develop resilience. Learn to bounce back from failures. They are just learning opportunities, not problems.
• Be generous – share ideas, network, teach, volunteer.
In future issues of this newsletter, other aspects and avenues of creativity will be addressed. There will also be viewpoints and suggestions from other people on how they tap into creativity. So stay tuned, and meanwhile, think of the words of Carl Jung: “If you must create something, perhaps you should create yourself.”