Nurture the Number 1 Tool No Builder can Afford to Lose

14th November 2010

Imagination & Creativity

Ok so that is kind of two, but they are part of the same thing. Will you let me off? World Building is one of those very creative pursuits. After all, the creation of our world and universe is known as ‘The Creation Story’ – quite a creative name if you ask me. So if we lose creativity then we become stale and boring. We no longer have our ability to think of a brilliant twist to the history of our world or draw the elegant curves of an archipelago. I must admit I did recently go through a moment of doubting my own creativity. Thankfully it was just a short lived period of doubt caused by essay stress. I had to visit Uncle Google for some reassurance. He opened his loving arms and pointed me in the direction of Psychologytoday.com. There’s no need to run off in fear. I’m not going to start using big scary psychology terms or do that freaky analysis thing Psychologists do. However, I will point you to the article Uncle Google gave me. The Creative Personality is an article that was written by Professor Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi on the 1st of June 1996 and reviewed in 2008, so it’s not too old.

The Creative Personality

I love the tag line to the article as it strokes the ego of all creative people out there:

“Creative individuals are remarkable for their ability to adapt to almost any situation and to make do with whatever is at hand to reach their goals.” – Professor Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi , The Creative Personality, Psychologytoday.com

I think that Professor Mihaly really taps into the essence of the creative person, but then he has been studying creative people for over 30 years. Reading the article reassured me that I’m not the only one that thinks as I do. It gave me the confidence to pick myself back up and get on with being creative.

“When we’re creative, we feel we are living more fully than during the rest of life. The excitement of the artist at the easel or the scientist in the lab comes close to the ideal fulfilment we all hope to get from life, and so rarely do.” – Professor Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi , The Creative Personality, Psychologytoday.com

Practical Steps

As I established above in this article it’s important that you keep your creativity and imagination in peak performance. Like an Olympian your brain requires training so here are a few little practical steps to take towards keeping your superpowers fresh.

1# Rest

Sleeping has to be the most amazing place to do large amounts of your creative thinking. Taking naps on the couch, snoozing in the chair, you’re a creative person so this is not being lazy, you are simply working. Just remember that you do need to actually put your ideas down on paper at some point. That last point is as much to myself as to anyone else, but I’m teaching myself to be better… slowly.

2# Be Positive

I find that an optimistic outlook on life helps me find creative solutions to problems. Look at each issue in your life as a little game that has more solutions than a maths prodigy playing with a Rubik’s cube. What Now?

image credit

Comments

3 responses

Lex Mosgrove

12th December 2010

Well, I for my part doubt the existence of the creative personality, I’d rather agree with the guys from Writing Excuses and say that it’s more a matter of how and where (and if at all) people apply their creativity (http://tinyurl.com/3438fll).

However, I totally agree on the positive outlook part. There’s this weird old saying that artists have to suffer to create truly great art, but to be honest, when I’m feeling lousy, I only create crap if anything at all. And I’m quite sure there are a lot of people like me in that respect.

Ah, well, putting all that (day)dreaming on paper is damn hard. So the artistically inclined folks should probably resolve to do so through pictures rather than words if that’s easier for them (I know it is for me).

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Nathan A Smith

14th December 2010

aye, I believe that everyone is creative, after all we were created in God’s image and who is more creative than him?

Creativity is something we are born with, though I also believe some people have a greater natural talent for it than others – such as melancholic’s. So it is most certainly something that can be improved, developed and trained. I forget where but I remember reading about how creative people think differently to the average joe.

Also I do believe the current education system stifles creativity =(

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Lex Mosgrove

17th December 2010

Yes, there certainly are differences in talent, even though I don’t like to use the term, because it’s been abused too often to tell people they have no chance at something because they “lack talent”. *facepalm*

If you define “creative people” as those folks who can come up with innovative solutions to problems more easily than the rest, then I totally agree. And yes, it can be trained, much like learning a musical instrument – and while that will be much harder for less talented people, and probably not as successful, they can still improve their skills.

The education system over here in Germany does that, too. One of the reasons I decided to go autodidactic with the stuff I really cared about (like worldbuilding, for example 😛 ).

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