Creativity

Creativity is something that is usually thought of as an abstract concept. Some people believe that it is a talent that only certain people have. I think that creativity is much more than that and we should use it to our advantage in our daily life.

Why is this important, and why has a blog post been written on it? We can use creativity as a weapon to make the most out of our constraints or overcome obstacles in our way. This is especially important when making stuff. When you think about people who make great stuff, its always about solving problems and decisions between alternatives. The creativity in your solutions and how you think about the situation will allow you to do something different than is expected. It can be the difference that separates your effort from others on so many different levels. This is far from a guarantee that your effort will be successful, however if you do what everyone else is doing you are likely to be mediocre at best.

So how do we go about doing this. There is no system or life hack that will get you there. It is really about hard work and making stuff. However here is a few points that could guide you to flex your creative muscles:

When starting out be really receptive to new ideas and view points. Capture anything that inspires you, ready to look over later. This is important as you have to be confident in yourself that something will come out of your endeavour, in order to give yourself the freedom to explore. Use everything you can draw upon to contribute and make connections.

Photo by Matteo Paciotti / CC BY (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/)

After this there is the time when being a critic is important, when you are actually making the thing. You need to be really critical if aspects do not meet the level you want it to and push things to help get it there. Overall ideas are cheap. Anybody can come up with ideas, but now its all about the implementation of them. Whether the implementation matches the ideas or is wildly different all depends on whether you can overcome the constraints and make your idea a reality. No two people have the same experiences or personality so use that to your advantage and be true to yourself.

Do not fixate on a particular system or process as these are unlikely to really apply fully to your problem or situation. Break things down and use what is useful to you from these systematic approaches. 

And remember to make this happen you are going to have to sit down and really try. You are going to have to make sacrifices to get there. 

A lot of the time the best advice is to just get started and work. So get going and keep making stuff!

Photo by Dusty J  / CC BY (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/)

For those that like reading in their spare time here is a relevant book: The Creative Habit by Twyla Tharp.

Originally posted on chiasma.org.nz