What is it to be Creative?
What is it to be Creative?
Creativity is a way of being, it’s an aliveness that flows from within us and ripples out into all we are and do. It’s a way to express ourselves, to be curious about what’s possible. It’s our ability to tap into our own pool of inner resources, our feelings, insight, wisdom, intuition, inspiration, imagination. It’s connection – to ourselves and the world around us. It’s our advantage point, it’s about turning those innovative insights into action. It’s an awareness. It’s empowering and life giving. It’s a fast flowing river that is carving it’s own path, leading it’s own way. It’s free flowing and it comes from within.
It’s critical to who we are as fully functioning human beings, it’s a way to connect the dots, a shift in perspective. It’s how we adapt and grow. It’s our way to thrive, our resourcefulness, it’s creating change, it’s an open mind that’s ready to give and receive. It’s a relationship with our Self, our inspired thought, our feelings, it’s a way to speak through the unspoken word, it’s a way to be seen and heard from the depths of our soul. It’s our potential. It’s a spiritual practice. It’s an exploration, it’s making mistakes, it’s self nourishing, it’s our playfulness, our power source – it’s our magic … it’s our birthright and it’s the missing link.
What it’s not is limited to special people, to the select few, to the gifted and the talented.
IT’S WITHIN US ALL.
In 1968 a study of 1,600 five year old children was carried out by George Land, a systems scientist who founded a research institute to study the enhancement of creative performance. The children were tested using the same process that NASA uses for their selection process of innovative engineers and scientists. At five, 98% of the children registered genius levels of creativity.
Retesting those same children at 10 and 15, this level of creative genius dropped alarmingly to 30% by the age of 10 and 12 % at the age of 15.
This same test has been used on over 280,000 adults and placed their creative genius at just 2%.
The conclusion of this study is that non creative behavior is in fact learnt behavior. As we grow into adulthood we become separated from a part of who we are being as a fully functioning human.
In 2012 an Adobe study on the creative gap showed that 8/10 people felt unlocking creativity is crucial to economic growth, two thirds feel creativity is valuable to society – yet only 1 in 4 believe they are living up to their creative potential.
In 2016 my own study showed that 73% of creatives said they needed help to develop their authentic creative voice. 77% said that the one thing that was holding them back from their creative potential is their own personal blocks and 90% believed that creative development was linked to personal development.
For centuries we’ve been conditioned into a left brain way of learning and living, favoring the logical mind, a linear, analytical way of being, shutting down the natural pathways to the creative flow of the right brain – empathy, innovation, curiosity, resourcefulness, intuition, creative expression. We have lived under the myth that we are born talented or gifted, that those with great talent are some sort of genius, that this talent or genius is not something that the everyday person can access. This belief is stunting our creative growth – our life force energy, individually and collectively. Many of us have forgotten how to use or access our creative muscle, or have been conditioned into de-activating it and are living against our own grain and what it is to be human.
Currently in creative industries we are treating the symptoms and not the cause of the real challenges we face as creators, we deal with the everyday problems and not the root cause of what it is that stops us from reaching our creative potential and how we stand in our own way. We are great at collecting insights yet are unable to rewire the belief systems that are at our core. We are trying to attain a creative way of living from a logical mindset because we do not know another way … the dominant logical mind will never understand what it is to be creative and we struggle to integrate the art of creative living into our daily lives. Yet there is another way. After over 20 years of walking (and often stumbling) on my own path to empowered authentic creativity, retraining with Cti (global leaders in coach training) as a Leadership Coach and making a stand for what I believe in, I’ve been working with creative thinkers and artists around the world from Doctors, Nurses, Scientists, Leaders in Education to Coaches, Performers, Artists, Entrepreneurs showing them that way, unlocking their creative potential so they too can make a difference doing what they love.
And here’s what I’m seeing time and time again through my work – You are so much more than who or what you think you are.
Are you ready to unlock your creative potential?