Sometimes, ‘easy’ can be ‘difficult’. Have you ever been assigned any task which is actually difficult to perform but not for everyone? And that is when you experience frustration. It is similar when a boss comes to a meeting and tells you to think ‘outside the box’.
And like the most clichéd lines like ‘give me some creative ideas’ is what you hear. Now, have you ever wondered how to get out of that ‘hypothetical pathetic box’ which is putting your creativity on the leash? Where to go after getting out of that ‘box’ and how to come back inside the ‘box’? And I often ask these questions to myself.
Now, I am sharing a mind heck with you which might help you to think creatively. And the mind heck is not to think ‘outside the box’ but to think ‘inside the box’. The entire idea to think ‘inside the box’ because then it will force you will think with limitations. Because when we think with limitations, that limitation provides you with a guideline to get to that creative response.
When you are given too much freedom to create, the first thing that comes to mind is the most clichéd statement and idea. But we want creative responses instead and a way to get that is to not fall into a sea of possibilities. We need to get on a boat and the boat will be your limitation.
We usually use this term creativity a lot but I could hardly think any of us understand it’s actual meaning. So, what actually is ‘creativity’? According to the dictionary definition ‘creativity’ is ‘the ability to make new things and think of new ideas’. But for me, this definition doesn’t even scratch the surface.
Creativity is a feeling, it’s a force. Creativity is an energy that gets caught up in time and space and yet flows through us yet also carries us.
There’s a mutual agreement that the creative process has a beginning, middle, and end. But creativity also had needs. So, the creative process always begins with a thought. We are having thousand and millions of thoughts within a day but it’s not just the ‘thought’ that counts. It depends upon the environment of the creative thinker.
Is the creative thinker in a negative shaming and harmful environment or the creative thinker is in a positive healthy and respectful environment? Creativity needs a sacred space. Being in a sacred space can gently nudge that creative thought out into the air like a caterpillar turning into a butterfly.
Some examples of sacred space are lofts and studios where painters and sculptors create their artworks and masterpieces. For example, if you are a writer and feeling frustrated then go to a library that’s a sacred space where other people have an appreciation for the written word and loves silence. It’s where you can open up and let the ‘creativity’ just pour out on to the page.
It’s even more wonderful when that sacred space can be shared with other people who understand that creative process and help you to gently nudge that thought out into the air. So, creativity needs a sacred space to be vulnerable in. It’s where thoughts become things a painter’s studio, a library, a quiet corner of your home.
And you need to cultivate that sacred space so that thought has a place to evolve in. And once you’ve honoured that thought, you’ve got to play around with it, sculpt it, shape it, mould it and make it more tangible and bring it to life. But in order to do so, you’ve got to fall down and get back up.
Creativity needs you to make mistakes and get messy, fall down and get back up again and embrace the F-word and that is “Failure”. I haven’t heard of anyone that could walk on the first day when they were born.
So, why do we put all these unrealistic expectations on ourselves to never fail? I always tell my students one thing, “The kick of failure always teaches you thousand times more than a trophy of victory”.
So, it’s from those mistakes that our creations are so much more powerful than that original thought. It’s where your creation starts to take a life of its own and begins to breathe.
The last step of the creative process is creativity needs to be shared. And in doing so you are giving your creations permissions through to find their own sacred space to inspire others. Nothing is original we all know that it’s all rehashed remixed, recycled but filtered through our own creative process and brought into the world.
