Creativity and Conquering Creative Limitations
Do you consider yourself a creative person? Do you enjoy the creative process? Today I’m going to start by defining creativity and then walk you through a process to embrace your creative abilities and tap into your creative potential.
Maybe creative thinking is something you’re striving for in your work or you’re simply searching for creative solutions to specific problems. Creative people tend to struggle with shutting down the inner critic and believing in their own novel ideas. Often, there are limiting beliefs or environmental factors that stand in our way of fostering creativity.
This article will help you identify the hangups in your creative process whether thats too much pressure on your creative performance or a lack of supportive creative individuals in your corner. After over a decade as a professional creative where creative output isn’t optional, I’ve learned that creativity requires resilience.
Creativity Definition
Creativity is making something new and original, often from the imagination. And creativity is often associated with an artistic pursuit. One of my favorite explanations of creativity is by Mary Lou Cook who says, “Creativity is inventing, experimenting, growing, taking risks, breaking rules, making mistakes, and having fun.”
I love how Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi connects creativity to flow and flow to happiness. Many artists also feel creativity is their connection to something outside of themselves whether that is God or nature or love. Put this way, when we connect to our creativity we’re connecting to flow, happiness, joy, and something greater.
Also, we can understand creativity by where we don’t find it. We don’t find it when we’re resigned to having a closed mind in a place where we don’t see any possible solutions or ways out. We don’t find creativity when we’re feeling resistant, stuck, inflexible, or hopeless. However, sometimes creativity does come out of boredom, chaos, or even pain and failure.
Why is Creativity Important
Creativity is attributed to helping you have a more flexible mind, increased problem-solving skills, and mastery over your craft. Creativity also teaches us that there are benefits of adversity. Since creativity often comes from challenges, it can lead to more beauty, purpose, and joy in our lives.
In the above definitions, I talked about how for many an act of creativity is a connection to something greater. Creativity is related to being in a flow state which can lead to positive mental health and even happiness.
It’s not just creatives that have decided this based on their feelings, the research backs it up. “The large and growing body of research pertaining to creativity and mental health suggests that, overall, creativity is related to positive mental health.” (Kaufman and Sternberh 212) “People who learn to control inner experience will be able to determine the quality of their lives, which is as close as any of us can come to being happy. (Csikszentmihalyi 2)
Creativity is in Nature… it’s In Our Nature
Nature is the place where many of us look to for the standards of creativity or life lessons on being creative. We see creativity in the way a tree grows year after year or a wildflower grows high up in the harsh alpine environment. The problem is that the beautiful things aren’t always the easy things.
One of my favorite Children’s books, The Little Tree by Loren Long tells a story about a little tree who is afraid to let his leaves go. But only when he lets his leaves go embracing the season of fall can he grow into the tree he’s supposed to be.
Children’s books are filled with stories from nature about the importance of resilience, exploration, and lessons learned from struggle. We have to continue to believe that creativity is a part of us and that we are connected to it. Here’s the truth, not only are we capable of it and connected to it, it grows.
Lessons from Children’s Books
The only true failure can come if you quit.” Rosie Revere Engineer
“Sometimes when you’re different you just need a different song.” Giraffes Can’t Dance
“Happiness is all around.” The Boy Who Spoke to the Earth
- Read more in my post on how Childrens books teach us to be more creative.
Creativity Grows and is Learnable
As the great Maya Angelou says, “You can’t use up creativity. The more you use, the more you have.” Maybe you don’t feel creative right now. Maybe there’s something in your way such as a distraction or some past trauma or you simply don’t have the time.
But creativity is learnable and it’s all about having a growth mindset and cultivating the personality traits of creatives. One of my favorite personality traits of creative people is an openness to new experiences. Feeling stuck? Try something new!
Research shows that creativity is learnable. Two of my favorite books on the subject are Growth Mindset and Personality isn’t Permanent. Benjamin Hardy reminds us that, “Your goals, not some predetermined set of fixed traits, shape your identity. Over time, and through repeated behavior, your identity becomes your personality.”
New identity: You are creative!
So far we’ve determined that creativity has multiple benefits that make it work incorporating into our lives. We also know that creativity is in our nature and even if we’ve lost your connection to it over the years. Like so many things in life, it comes down to choosing who we are going to be and then setting goals and shaping our identity accordingly.
It’s a choice though. It’ll require you to be open to experiences and adventure. You’ll have to lean into fear, failure, and flexibility. You might have to get unstuck from patterns, reframe your trauma, and more.
You might have to look around your environment and decide if it supports the old you or the you that you want to become. Let’s just pretend you’re all willing, you’re signing up for this climb. Now we need to address the challenges ahead of us.
What Limits Our Creativity?
Everyone has different circumstances that limit or get in the way of their creativity. For some it’s a problem of our identity and that we haven’t taken the time to know, discover, or understand ourselves. We don’t believe we’re creative because of a negative mindset, rigid thoughts and ideas, old stories, mental blocks, overthinking, or inflexibility.
For others it’s a problem when our physical environment. We have too many distractions with long to-do lists and too much pressure on our time and schedule. This leads to feeling stuck maybe because our surroundings limit our motivation and freedom to create.
And for some it’s our social environment. Maybe we have boundary issues or relationship issues that we need to deal with. It might mean needing the social support and encouragement or to process heavy emotions like grief, rage, or fear that might stand in our way.
Determine What’s Holding You Back
Before we move on, take a minute to think about what is holding you back creatively. Get specific with what you think stands in your way. If you’re like me, you might have some from each catagory so in order to come up with a strategy it’s helpful to get specific.
Identity: Sometimes I doubt if I’m good enough, if I really have something novel to share. Physical environment: Other days I simply neglect my creative pursuits because I’m more worried about making money than art. Social environment: sometimes I spend time with people that don’t support my creative dreams rather than surrounding myself with those that do.
Once we identify the things that stand between us and our creativity, we can start to build a strategy to live a more creative life. It helps to look back to what resonated with us about why creativity matters. What are you goals and reasons for wanting to be more creative? Knowing that will help you tackle the challenges ahead.
Shaping a Creative Identity
Choosing your identity is such a simple yet incredibly challenging task. Many inspirational people encourage us to take control of our thoughts. The meditation teacher Cheri Huber says, “What you practice is what you have.” Tony Robbins says, “Where your thoughts go energy flows.”
The idea is that while we can’t control everything that goes on around us, we can choose our thoughts. If that sounds impossible or unlikely to you, don’t worry. We can learn to use practices such as mindfulness, gratitude, prayer, breathing, and meditation to influence the thoughts, rewire the brain, and get out of our heads.
Practices like meditation and breathing had been studied and linked to focus, calm, concentration, and decreased stress. It may come as no surprise that such practices therefore can lead to greater creativity through innovative thinking and generation of new ideas. The question of shaping our identity comes down to choosing who we want to be and them setting goals that become habits that help us become who we desire.
Fostering a Creative Physical Environment
Once we’ve addressed the inner landscape of our minds by choosing what thoughts we’re focusing on, it’s time to look at the eternal landscape. What do we surround ourselves with? You may have hear the quote that says, “Don’t tell me what you value, show me your calendar and bank account and I’ll show you what you value.”
The first question to ask yourself is if your values equal your priorities. How do you start or end your day? Can we start every day with the most important things and practices? Could we increase our motivation and passion?
Secondly, when it comes to our physical environment I’m a big fan of simplicity and minimalism. I always say that “simple is best” and we should simplify so we can flow. Where can we simplify our life, our schedule, our physical and mental clutter to make room for creative thought?
Daily Input
When it comes to our environment I like to think about our daily input. What are we putting into our bodies from all 5 senses? That would include food, water, social media, books, thoughts, podcasts, TV shows, art on our walls, clutter in our space, and all of our rituals and routines like exercise or meditation.
The question to ask is does it help/hurt my creativity in the long run? If you’re sitting at your desk trying to start a project but you look up and see laundry or a full inbox, it’s hard to be creative. If you’re listening to negativity on the news or feeling aches beause you haven’t moved your body, it’s hard to be creative.
This is where I tell you that creativity involves so much more of your life that you realize. You groan and grab another handful of your favorite candy. But underneath your craving for candy is something that’s limiting your creativity and if you do the hard work of uncovering it, what magic will you create?
Developing a Supportive Social Environment
The last thing that holds us back might be the one that has the biggest opportunity for growth. It’s really hard to be creative alone. It’s lonely pursuing something that people don’t seem to value, or that society doesn’t always value. Maybe it’s your office policies that make it hard to pursue creativity because they don’t encourage risk taking or maybe it’s your family that thinks you should focus on profits.
And unfortunately, creativity for creativity sake and intrinsic motivation produces more original work than creativity linked to a reward. That makes it hard to value creativity. We have to be willing to work hard and let go of the results which is contrary to how the rest of the world works.
In the research on how to increase divergent thinking in the workplace, they discovered that we should be supporting wild ideas and even encouraging emotions. But how often is that how things are set up? “The most typical way to support DT is through training that emphasizes tactics that allow the individual to generate numerous potential solutions, embrace wild ideas, and seek novelty.” (Kaufman and Sternberh 117) “Workers’ creativity was, in fact, highest when the context was supportive and both positive and negative moods were high.” (Kaufman and Sternberh 186)
Final Challenge
The final challenge is to change your limitations to reflect a new positive habit regarding your creative process.
If your limitation was, “I don’t have time for creative thinking,” your new affirmation is something like, “I make time everyday for creativity.” If your limitation was, “My community doesn’t support my creative process,” your new affirmation might be, “I seek and find creative people around me.”
I can’t wait to see how you tend to your creative potential and turn it into creative productivity! Your creative abilities are your super power. They are gifts.
Summary
Creativity requires resilience. It requires that you be willing to try new things, make mistakes, face your fears, and fail. But in a world where convergent thinking is the easier path, divergent thinking and creative thinking feel even more risky than ever before.
Human creativity is important and the creative process has led us far, not just in the visual arts but in science, technology, and even economic growth. The world needs creative people, or at the very least your community needs you. I’d love to hear how you’re tacking your creative limitations, surrounding yourself with other creative people, and increasing your time in that beautiful state of flow.
about the author
I am Brenda Bergreen, one half of a husband and wife photography team specializing in Colorado wedding photography and videography as well as adventure photography. If you need someone to encourage your creativity, I’m here. (*Links to stuff I like may include affiliate links.)
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