Alison Doyle list what one might call a nontraditional list of creative characteristics in her article, Creative Thinking Definition, Skills, and Examples.
One of my first memories of what I thought was creativity was my grade school art teacher. From what I recall about him, I did not like him very much as a child. But, I do remember being excited about the things we made in our art class.
Clay bowls, paintings, simple drawings all introduced me to a world that, I didn’t really understand. And, at points since then, have confounded me.
Enter our new world order of the digital kind and it’s clear, creativity is so much more than colored pencil to paper or a song sung beautifully.
If you’re a blogger like I am, you’re a creative. I never saw it that way before.
If you’re a teacher like I am, you’re a creative. I never saw it that way before.
If you’re a singer, God bless you. I only sing in the shower (mostly).
In other words the narrow view that I had of creativity haunted me most of my life. It has taken some external motivation from some trusted folks in my life to break the shell for me.
Are you a creative thinker?
I know. When you try on the suit of “I’m a creative” it doesn’t feel right at first. For me, my brain thinks in logical and linear ways, which I believe is why I was apprehensive about embracing it.
Here’s the thing though. For me, what I found was my creativity blossomed once I saw myself that way.
And again, I’m not talking about painting, or songwriting, dancing, or sculpting.
I’m talking about practical things like being on a call in my former job with my salesperson listening to the concerns of the training manager and figuring out how to meet her needs.
Or beginning a training session and after a short time into it, feeling the energy from the group and having to make course changes on the fly.
Or coming up with a slogan for a training department (with the help of marketing) to brand our messaging.
All these are legitimate creative endeavors.
You engage in creative thinking everyday. Now that you know that. I want you to exercise that muscle even more as you creatively achieve your personal growth and development goals.