Are You Creative?

I must admit, for a long time I was associating creativity only with artists, inventors, designers; people who are able to create something beautiful, original, breathtaking.

Obviously, that put me in the category of “non-creative”. And then I noticed kids playing. You give them some dirt, stones, sticks, and water, and off they go, creating an imaginary world to play in. We all were kids at some point, so I guess we were all born with the ability to create. And if so, how come we often feel uneasy about tapping into our creativity as adults?

What is our “writer’s block” when someone asks us to be creative? Maybe it is our definition of "creativity". Maybe we feel the pressure to perform well (How quickly can I think of an idea?), to compare ourselves with others (Wow, look at that cool thing he was able to put together!), or to listen to the messages we tell ourselves (You cannot possibly do this, you’ve never been good at this…).

When we struggle with the feeling of not being X - substitute X for creative, smart, efficient, ready, good enough - we ask ourselves over and over, “Why am I not X?”, “What should I do to be more X?”. But a more powerful question to ask in that moment is “How am I being X?”

How are you being creative? Take a moment and think of it for a while. Play Devil’s Advocate and try to prove the case that you actually are creative.
You may realize some of the following ways you are creative in your life. For instance, perhaps:

• You always find humor in any situation - create a positive outlook.
• You are able to take a messy room/relationship/situation and turn it into something inviting - create harmony.
• You know how to make simple moments with your loved ones feel special - create memories.
• You have a tendency to share information that others need, or to reuse something that would otherwise end up in a trash can - create value.

I think that instead of losing our ability to build imaginary worlds with stones and sticks, as we grow and mature, we actually learn how to create so many different things that we stop seeing the natural creativity we all carry within us.

So, are you creative? Well, as long as you are alive, you are constantly creating something. And you can decide what you want to create in any given moment.