Creativity is not just something artists, and poets, and authors have. I always thought it was. My grandmother was an artist, my father extremely talented at building something from nothing, with huge creativity in every result and my mother is a writer. This talent, artistic ability, was so unique and always so far from my reach. My sister, cousin and aunties all followed the creative art genes. I seemed to lack in all of them and would laugh this off.
We all have it!
What I didn’t get, until very recently, is how much this creativity is inherent in us all, and something, when released, is part of whatever we do. It is allowing this creativity to shine through in your work, that allows us ALL to produce something unique. This could be your style of presentation, how you pull together a board report, how you engage with colleagues, what (and how and why) you teach your children. When I entered the technology world, my creativity was in another form. I still had talent, but in seeing things from a different perspective.
Creativity is imagination.
It is creating your own magic, letting your ideas and your light shine through. Or simply doing something in your own way. One of my team has a knack of adding silly pictures to our otherwise mundane social media posts. They engage people, and make everyone smile.
Creativity is passion!
Look at someone who absolutely LOVES what they do. Hear them talking about windows, or horse feed, or building cladding and they light up. They draw you in and you cant help but share in their enthusiasm and PASSION for what they do. They ooze creativity. This passion breeds more creativity when we let it.
Creativity is intuition.
It is the ability to identify ideas based on our gut instinct and to trust enough to take action on them. How often have we had a gut feeling about something, a new idea, and ignored it, and regretted it later. New ideas come from intuition, but again you have to trust they WILL come.
The intuitive mind is a sacred gift, and the rational mind is a faithful servant. We have created a society that honors the servant and has forgotten the gift.
Albert Einstein
Too often our creativity is pigeon holed. At school and we are judged by our lack of talent – but is this how the teacher defines creativity? Or we are taught to put more importance into rational thought than intuition and our ability to create new ideas.
On a lighter note….
As part of my South Island Trip last year, I decided I needed to get a little creative. Before I left, I spent at least an hour browsing Spotlight (this is like a hobby shop), stocking up on all sorts of craft items, to feed my creative appetite. I am not sure I new exactly what would come of this. I got stickers, cut out pictures, novelty items, string, glue, and every imaginable item I “just might” want to create something.
Letter Board
I tried a letter board and hung it up in my campervan. In my evenings without TV (loved that also!), this was a good time occupier, and kept me away from just working all the time. I started with songs, for along the journey and moved to quotes. While fun, I got bored of that game relatively quickly!
Explore Board
One creative activity I did mange to complete was my Explore board. I love the word explore. It reminds me of being a child and playing in the stream at the bottom of our property, exploring how water made its own path to reach its destination. Or exploring through the pine forest, also on our 10 acre block, and spending hours up into the bush. There was always something new and being immersed in nature had to be a favourite pastime for me. So one of my creative purchasers was a wooden plaque saying “EXPLORE”.
Every new place (well most), I would find walks for Layla and I. We explored new places, based on recommendations from locals, or my own research and made this part of “life on the road”. These are memories I will treasure forever. When out walking, I would collect little treasures. My rule was, they all had to be natural and relevant to the place I was visiting. I then stuck them to my “Explore board” and (when I remembered) took photos of the progress.
The lesson in all of this? Perhaps simply that creativity is what anyone chooses it to be. My plaque now hangs in my “at home” office and has beautiful reminders of the magical places I am so grateful to have visited. Whatever has you showing passion, using your intuition and imagination or just plain feels good, let that be your personal creativity!
