Creativity will solve all your problems

Creativity.  When do you do it?  Is it hard for you?

It didn’t used to be.  All kids use creativity and imagination all the time.  Think of all the crayons, construction paper, glue, scissors, paint, cotton balls, milk carton projects they create.  They are doing this stuff on a daily basis sometimes.  When was the last time you used crayons and glue? (Scrap book Moms excluded.)

And when kids play, they are always imagining they are something else, acting out roles, and pretending to be in a magical fairy wonderland place.

This is true right brain thinking, and somehow, when we get older, we think it is kids’ stuff and so we repress our urge or desire or habits of creating and thinking differently.

The problem is that when we get older, we seem to have a lot more problems, and so we need creativity more than ever to think beyond the possibilities or outside the realm of how we are seeing our current situation or problem.  

There is a solution. 

To find it, we must break our assumptions of what is ‘true’ or ‘a fact’.  That takes imagination and ‘pretending’.

My favorite book on creativity is “Orbiting the Giant Hairball” by Gordon MacKenzie.  It is even written creatively like no other book I’ve seen.  There are pages with handwritten notes, he does his own artwork, and his stories are amazing.  I highly recommend it, even if you’re not a corporate person.

The next time you feel stuck with a problem you can’t solve, start activating your right brain – create some art, dance in the rain, imagine a fantastical place with unicorns and fairies – and maybe a solution will come to you.  If not, at least you’ll have fun and your problem won’t seem that important anymore.