What is Creativity?

I have given this word a lot of thought lately. I have recently read “The Artist’s Way” by Julia Cameron and have started the habit of writing “morning pages”. It really has not been a struggle to adopt this practice since I have kept a journal on and off my whole life.

What is new for me is to think of myself as a creative human being. I have never really thought of myself as artistic. But this book focuses on the word “creative” and the change of term is thought provoking to me. Traditionally, I always think of the two words being synonymous. Someone who is creative is artistic. But does creativity have to be expressed solely though artistic expression?

I find that this morning habit is deeply reflective. I have learned a lot about myself and the stories I run consistently through my brain; some true but most not. But what is most interesting is that I have never thought about how much stuff I actually create.

Is the creation of a strategic plan and a corporate
vision creative? Is coming up with a new recipe for dinner being creative? Is designing my own thank you card on Tiny Prints creative? Is writing a pithy tweet creative? Is planning out an agenda for a meeting creative? Is pulling together synergistic ideas and forming a new strategy creative?

I think it is very true that we are all creative beings. It gets expressed in a million different ways every day. What is exciting to me is how technology is speeding up and easing the ability for us all to express our individual gifts.

We have citizen journalism with the rise of web 2.0, we have Instagram and Flikr for budding photographers; blogging for wannabe writers, and Pinterest for those that love to gather and organize ideas and data, to name just a few.

What is sad is that we don’t embrace and revel in our creativity enough. Maybe that is why we have had a period of innovation stagnation in our country. Too many people were trying to tell us what innovation is and how it can be created and planned in a meeting. A culture that embraces and nurtures creativity creates fertile ground for “black swan” events. The world is ready and in need of big creative ideas. The technology is there and growing at exponential rates to support big step changes. If everyone in the world saw themselves as creative beings how exciting would that be?!

How will you be creative today?