The one thing we don’t like to share as much as we should.
And we all do it.
Benjamin Hardy, PhD Justin Cox Tom Kuegler
You might have quessed, it is our creativity.
It’s a thing. It’s a big thing.
We hold on tight to our creativity, say we all love it and use it.
But when the times comes to share your one big idea.
Silence!
Time to confess….I never aimed to become a creativity coach; in fact, I am not sure how this all happened. What I do know is that I thrive when creativity is involved, and I love to help people get into creativity.
The thing is whether you like it or not, we are all creative. And since you are here, I’m guessing you love creativity too.
The thing is many of us got told at school, maybe even at home or any other situation that they should follow. Follow the lead, the rest of the group and not listen to what you wanted to do. Your idea, your remarkable insight.
Deep down, you know you wanted to do it, your way, but you hesitated.
Breathed in and out and stopped. Dared not to go any further.
Dreaded what might happen.
Stopped in your movement and the moment was lost.
You didn’t do it; you hesitated because others were watching, eyeballing you if you did it the right way, the way people like us do.
People like us?
What about people like you?
I still remember the day this happened to one of the kids in art class I was helping, he was just seven years old. He wanted to color the banana purple, but his teacher forbade it. She said: “A banana is yellow and he should use yellow”.
I firmly pushed the purple pencil in his hand and said he could use every color he wanted.
That was the day I realized that we had big problems to overcome.
One the one hand education crushes the creative process with overthinking all exercises and leaving no room for free interpretation and imagination, according to Sir Ken Robinson, this is happening not just on some schools but is a global problem. On the other hand, we teach teams in organizations on how to start using their creativity again.
Again.
First of all, we always use our creativity, but we tend to do it when others don’t look. We have learned to be ashamed when we act differently. To feel like an outsider and should behave like most people.
So we hide this one simple thing, the one thing that we should embrace, totally love because it gives us the freedom to live, to thrive if we let it and to solve what we need to solve. We would never have come so far without our creativity. It’s a gift. Nothing to be ashamed of or claim you don’t have it.
Thing is I am not like most people, and neither are you.
You are a wonderful stand-alone entity, we all are.
What bothers me is that most training programs are based on getting back your creativity. To my knowledge, it has never left your brain; you just decided it was safer not to show it in public. To spare yourself the agony, the eyeballing and the comments.
Thing is when we feel this, we decide ourselves not to use our ideas, solutions, or any other creative insight we had at that moment.
And that is such a shame.
And I know how it works. Always I tried to be true to my ideas, but that is hard, and sometimes I give up.
Because people stare, look at you, and you cringe, trying to be invisible.
Look as if you never said anything.
And when this happens, it has the same effect as the teacher who says you are not to colour the banana purple.
You decide not to use your creativity again.
I decided for myself this was not the way I wanted to play the game called life. I wanted to be as creative as I could. It is me; my creativity is my thoughts and my given talent.
Your creativity is your God-given talent, and you should be able to use it.
The fantastic thing is that everybody has it; there is no need to pretend you don’t have it.
Although many people do: No, I’m not creative.”
That is like claiming you cannot breathe. It’s there. You may not like it, but it is here,
So, in the end, it is up to you to decide if you use it or not.
If you use it, I expect you exercise your creative muscles daily and have different ideas, then what we see happening around us.
Maybe you want your company to stand out; you need creative ideas…to make your brand and message remarkable.
If you own a small business and you need to make an impact, you need creativity to make it happen. Even when you want to start up your business, without money, you need loads of ideas to be able to find new and unorthodox solutions to make it work.
Or maybe you aim to create change and wish to see movement happen.
Whatever you do You are one of a kind, and your creativity is too.
The thing is with creativity, everything is possible.
So I don’t really care how I call myself, and I don’t think you do either…I love the fact that everything is possible.
And that means for you too.
If you have big dreams, I want you to make them a reality.
So with everything in the world happening right now.
I would like you to make your new years resolutions early this year.
What are the goals you will start working on next year?
Oh, and just In case you wondered..NO, I would not have it any other way.
Thanks for reading,
Maurille
