Recently, I read an article on the Psychology Today website called, “How to be Creative: Can Creativity be Taught?” Though the article had some useful suggestions, something bothered me about this title. I realized that the reason I don’t like the phrase “how to be creative” is that it assumes that a person might not be creative to begin with.
I think we are all creative. I think we were made to be creative and our level of creativity certainly separates us from other living things. Think of your childhood for a moment. Did you ever pretend? Did you ever daydream? Did you imagine how much fun it would be do something you had never done before?
The ability to imagine is the ability to be creative. Someone might think that since everyone can imagine something, you would have to imagine something “unreal” as in a fictional story in order to consider it creative. But, remember the definition of creativity that we discussed in this previous post? Creativity is “recombining elements that already exist in a new way.” Even the “unreal” things that we might imagine are all going to be derived from that which we already know. They will be “elements that already exist” put together in a unique way.
So, as you go about your day today, don’t think that you are going to “be creative” but rather that you are going to use the creativity that you already possess. Your confidence in your own creativity will help you get past the “I’m not creative” mental hurdle and will help channel your creativity energy to recombine things that are already around you in new and exciting ways. [See What is Creativity? for more information.]
I agree with this wholeheartedly. I wish I would have taken more opportunities to use my creativity with piano when I was a child. It has been fun for me to dabble in it a bit now that I am older and try and encourage my children and students to do the same.