In it he posits that there is no such thing as a “creative type” … that we all have the ability to be creative. (Something tells me I just ran out of excuses here!) He even refers to it as a skill. That I am not so sure about. I agree that we can all be creative, and that we can develop our creativity, but IMHO it is something beyond skill that makes an idea creative. Some part of our soul that sees, feels, or hears something that no one else does. For me, there is magic in creativity. I do agree with Mr. Lehrer, though, when he suggests that “cross-pollination” with other fields encourages creativity. When we learn to see things from another perspective, we open ourselves up. And that “Aha!” experience is one of the things that we open ourselves up to.
The process of creativity allows us to either create new ideas, or make new connections between existing ideas. It’s all good! When we are creative, our life flows. We are able to solve problems in innovative ways, and we feel joy and happiness. One of the keys to allowing ourselves to access our creativity is to maintain a happy attitude. When we are happy, when we make a conscious attempt to see things in a positive manner, we find it easier to be creative.
How can we boost our creativity? My thought is that creativity is not focused on only part of our life, but that it should be applied to all of our life. Everything that we do should show that creative spark, that interest in life and what surrounds us. Debra Kaye wrote an excellent article that talks about learning to move quickly between left brained and right brained thinking. We may be more comfortable, or function more easily, in one side or the other, but it is the balance between the two that encourages creativity. Check it out here -
Brainstorming is one way to start the creative juices flowing. Write out all the ways that you can think of to address an issue … just get silly with it, and see where it takes you! I did not want to have to dig out my Christmas decorations this year, so my first step on being creative was to mentally agree to just pick up a couple of things that appealed to me, and set them out.