What Defines Creativity? A New Way of Exploring Your Creative Side

Have you ever been in a moment where your mind is completely blank when suddenly a solution you’ve been trying to find for weeks becomes apparent? These moments bring us into contact with our creative spirit, which ignites a desire to be innovative, exploring new ideas and solutions.

Stages of Creativity:

That inspirational moment is the pinnacle of a creative process of problem-solving. The distinctive stages each have qualities necessary for creatively solving problems:

Preparation

Searching for helpful and relevant information, allowing your imagination to roam free and discover prepares you for the process. Be receptive and open and get out of the mundane. It’s important to break boundaries that confine our creative thoughts.

Incubation

Allowing the problem to simmer helps to determine the best creative solution. You find the best solutions when you are not entirely focused on the problem. Your unconsciousness is better suited to creativity than is your consciousness. Thus, daydreaming often spurs on the best ideas and solutions.

Illumination & Translation

Illumination is the product of daydreaming and immersion. We tend to give this stage the most attention since it will save the day. However, the idea needs to be brought to life to be worth it. Make use of your insight, transforming it through action.

Inside Creativity

Life is filled with creativity so long as we keep pushing boundaries and moving out of routine. Creativity shines in finding new solutions to the same, daily dramas. While most people think creativity is something that others were born with, we’re all able to tap into our creative spirit at any time. It’s more than just having ideas, but having an awareness to improve how you exercise your creativity.

In creative thinking, there are no mistakes, but rather unsuccessful experiments. Creativity allows us to continue trying new things until we find the best solution. These are not failures but opportunities to learn.

Children’s Creativity

Creativity is born in childhood when life is simply an adventure. The desire to explore and question everything is the essence of both childhood and creativity. The ways in which we explore our creativity in childhood shapes a lot of our adult thoughts. Sadly, creativity is often suppressed in childhood by constantly being watched, evaluated, the competitive environment at school, being subjected to a degree of control and the pressure to perform at an expected level.

Workplace Creativity

Many companies don’t acknowledge the idea of creativity since they believe it doesn’t have a place. However, interpreting information in itself is a creative task. Businesses require creativity for innovation, problem-solving, improving work-flow and various others to improve the overall functioning of the company.

Awareness

We tend to go through life on auto-pilot, enjoying the predictable nature of our surroundings. This puts an end on creativity and prevents us from opening our minds to new ideas. To truly be creative, we need to increase out awareness of our surroundings.

Letting Go

Many creative describe the moment they become most creative as a time when they simply ‘let go’. This is often during mundane tasks like showering, exercising or falling asleep when your mind is letting go of everything.