What it Truly Means to Be Creative in Your Everyday Life

creative people creativity empowerment mentorship motivation personal development Oct 27, 2020

Many of us believe there are certain people who are gifted with creativity. We think of artists, singers, and dancers. But what if I told you we’re all creative?

Let’s clearly define what it means to be creative. Creativity can be found in more than just artwork or a beautiful song. All expressions of life point to the importance of creativity in everyday life. I believe that every human being is born in the image of their creator which makes us all creative!

You have to be creative to live your life well...

Whether you realise it or not, you are designed to be creative. No matter your profession, talents, or skills, your life requires a great deal of creativity.

So why is creativity important? Let’s look at some examples of creative thinking in everyday life. Our relationships require creativity. Building a great home or a great family requires creativity.

Creativity is required from the way we do our work to the way we plan a great vacation. Creativity is needed to live our lives well!

And yet, so many of us don’t view ourselves as creative. We’ve allowed ourselves to think that only those who make things that can be seen and celebrated can earn the title of being creative. Could this be because we don’t truly know how to “be creative”?

You and I are born creative...

We are all born creative, but because no one tells us that, most of us live with our creativity dormant. We’ve been given this incredible gift of imagination, the ability to create new ideas and concepts, but as we age, we live less from our imagination.

We begin to live more from our senses and things we can easily explain. It takes energy and intentionality to age well, to create, and so often we pass on the opportunity of the creative life because we feel we don’t know how to be creative.

If there’s one gift this global pandemic has presented us, it’s been the push out of our “business as usual” mindset. Society has been forced to become creative in how we interact, shop, converse, and beyond.

Disrupting the norm...

Many people, especially those in leadership, can often be put off by or threatened by new ideas and different ways of doing things. We frequently see this with the mindset of saying things like, “we shouldn’t try to change something that is working well.” Attempting to fix or improve something that is already deemed ‘sufficient’ can be viewed as risky and costly, especially in the business world where performance and time are costly.

History has been shaped by not only creative people, but by disruptively creative people. Henry Ford was an outside of the box creative and an entrepreneurial thinker. While people of his day thought what they needed was a faster horse, it wasn’t the disruptively creative idea that Henry Ford came up with when he thought up the Model T automobile.

Not only did he create a far-superior solution to a need, but he profoundly impacted the landscape of the 20th century because he was willing to be more creative and spend the time necessary for imagining what could be.

Insights on Creativity...

Creativity is “bruti-ful”.

It’s beautiful in its outcome, but brutal in its process
It’s exhausting
It’s oftentimes unrewarding and the results can be delayed

Like all good things that require hard work and determination, the journey of creativity will be filled with rejection, judgement, and pain. If we’re going to be successful in the long run, we have to push through the pain and break through the brutal in order to get to the good stuff.

Creativity prefers ‘combat boots’ to ‘slippers’.

Creativity favours the bold
It favours those who show up ready to work
It favours those who press in and press through

When it comes to inspiration and unleashing creativity, you have to be willing to show up and fight rather than simply waiting for inspiration to appear. We have to be willing to trade in our comfortable slippers and lace up our metaphorical combat boots in the fight for creativity.

Creativity is the opposite of helplessness.

Help and assistance are not the opposite of helplessness
Self-determination is the opposite of helplessness

Every human has the ability to pull themselves out of stuck-ness and create a new option for their lives. We can be creative and innovative with the proper belief systems in place.

We can create our environments differently than how we see them currently. People who believe they can’t do anything until they get help, don’t realise they have help inside them.

Creativity is bread through tranquility.

Find what protects your sense of peace
Find what you love and do more of that
Find the environments that allow you to best flourish

If you find creativity is drying up, then perhaps you shouldn’t try to be more creative but instead check your surroundings. If your mind is cluttered or anxious, creativity won’t be able to flow fully. Tranquility breeds and fosters creativity, so get around things that light you up as a person.

Answer the call to create…

The call to create is echoing out to each of us. We all have access to creativity within ourselves; it’s up to us whether or not we answer that call to the creative life. If you’re tired of sitting on the sidelines of life waiting for your chance to create, get out there and start making moves. You must ask yourself, “Why is creativity important to you?”

Our words have power as do our thoughts, so let’s use them to be creative and innovative with the life we want. I promise you that as you begin to show up, do the work, and set out to intentionally seek creativity in different areas of your life, you will continue to notice how much opportunity there really is to be creative in your day to day life.

*** If you’re interested in learning more about just how creative you already are and how to be more intentional about building on that, check out my online course, “Ten Laws of Creativity”.

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