Creativity is utilized in every part of our lives, whether we know it or not.
Most people don’t really understand this. It’s a skill — one of the most powerful skills we can possess but more importantly, a skill that can be learned and put to good use.
So why is this skill so important?
With the art of being creative, many people think of it as creating some- thing new, but that’s not all it is. Technically, yes, creativity is about creating something new but there’s more to it than that. When I think of creativity, I immediately think of problem-solving. By being creative, you have the powerful ability to look at any issue from multiple points of view and create a solution to the issue at hand.
How many times have you had a problem or a situation in which you were simply stuck and couldn’t move forward? We’ve all had this in many areas of our lives, but the difference between those who succeed and those who remain stagnant is simple; it’s how creative they are and how they can creatively change their situation.
Imagine being faced with a dilemma and in minutes, being able to analyze it and instinctively come up with a solution with almost no effort. That’s the power of creativity — being able to assess a situation and coming up with a solution by creating a different angle of attack, not just one angle but multiple angles of attacking the situation at hand and coming up with the solution.
I heard a story from someone a long time ago about a fly. This person was sitting in front of a window and there was this fly on it. The fly was banging its head against the window repeatedly, trying to get through the window to get outside. No matter how many times the fly banged its head or how many times the fly seemed positive it would work, it wasn’t going to work.
Positivity just isn’t going to get you there. All that fly had to do to get out- side was to simply look to the right, because there was another window be- side the closed one which was open. The fly could easily have flown out that window.
How many times in life are we just like that fly where we’re banging our heads repeatedly against the window, when in reality if we’d have just sat back for a moment, looked at the situation from a different angle and found a solution with a simple change in the direction of what we were doing? That’s a classic example of creativity.
Creativity is really nothing more than alternative endings for your problems. The more alternatives we have, the more choices we have to choose from and that’s the beautiful part of creativity, is that it gives us choices as to what we could do.
So take a moment to breathe, look at your particular situation and create several possible outcomes for what- ever issue you are facing. Choose your path wisely and escape the head banging that so many people fall prey to.
