This year I chose the word “creativity” as my guide.
Ironically, I’ve ended up spending more of my time doing paperwork and bureaucratic tasks so far.
Running a business with two legal entities in two countries can do that at tax time.
Still, I’ve wanted to explore what creativity means and how we can tap into it more daily.
Next week, I have an interview with Elayna Snyder about how we can use creativity to take our businesses off the charts.
Today, I wanted to explore how we’ve turned creativity into a cog in the business machine.
Seeing Creativity As Output from a Machine
We have mechanized our creativity. We see it as an output from a factory, instead of an act of life.
Chemistry uses formulas.
Biology is an unfolding of life.
We can use chemistry to understand art.
We can figure out the formula of what makes something successful.
But to create art, it should come from a living system interacting with another living system, pursuing its natural life purpose.
When we try to be creative by following formulas, we’re stopping the natural growth or the “taking on a life of its own” that happens.
You are Inherently Creativity
Creativity is something we are all born with.
It’s something that breathes life into things.
When we try to coerce creativity into doing our “bidding”, we lose its essence.
To create is what we were born to do.
Whether that is creating life, poetry, boats, quilts, ideas, meals, or anything else we might imagine.
Businesses included.
It’s all a creative act.
When we try to overanalyze and fit creativity into a formula for how things “should” be created, or how businesses “should” work…
We lose that creative spark.
For example, I loved learning everything I could about starting a family, being pregnant, and giving birth.
But at the end of the day, I had to let go of all the knowledge about growing a little human… and surrender to the act of creativity by letting my child come into this world.
There was a massive level of letting go and letting it happen required.
Creativity in all realms has a similar intention: to come into being and live life.
Stifling your creativity by second-guessing, worrying what other people might think, and how it’s all going to “happen” is a sure way to stifle creativity.
We are not machines
Sometimes our creativity isn’t ready to come out and play.
Other times, it’s how we expect it to show up that stops it from unfolding.
I’m excited to share my interview with Elayna next week because she has a simple but powerful exercise for tapping into your creativity.
Stay tuned!
