Tuesday, August 23, 2011

Were you born this way?

Creativity is kind of useful in life, relationships and business.  I would argue that it is critical to successful problem solving, but I hear this a lot:

"I'm not a creative person."

I've heard that line a thousand times (and said it even more).  Then I realized something.  I've never committed myself to being creative.

We tend to think that you're either born creative or you're not.  In reality, if you want to be good at anything, it takes practice (I know.  I'm full of unique insights).  You can be creative if you really want to be.  Maybe the issue is truly that you don't care to be creative and that's perfectly fine.  I want to learn to play the piano, but I don't want to practice.  So I'll just be okay with not knowing how.  However, if you want to be creative, commit to getting better at it.

Most of all, creative thinking takes committed quiet time, which is probably why most of us drop the idea of it pretty quickly.

Here's the point: you can be creative.  You have two questions to ask yourself first:

  1. Is this something I really want to learn?
  2. Am I willing to make the sacrifice and commitment that it's going to take for me to get better?
Pretty simple, right?

So, are you creative?