What do you think of when you think of someone who’s creative? You probably pictured a painter, musician, or something else in the artistic realm. You probably didn’t think of someone searching for the cure for cancer or writing software to beat the stock market. Yet both of those are highly creative tasks.

Definition of create:

1. To cause to come into being, as something unique that would not ordinarily evolve or that is not made by ordinary processes
2. To evolve from one’s own thought or imagination, as a work of art or an invention.

It’s true that when many people think of creative work, they think of artistic professions – painters, sculptors, musical composers, and the like. Basically if you have to buy a ticket to see it, it’s a creative endeavor.

But is that really the case?

Beyond the Artist

It’s not too much of a stretch to say that video game designers are creative. What about graphic designers? Sure. Now what about the UX expert? If you didn’t know, “UX” is, it’s short for User Experience. There are people whose job it is to make sure when you’re using a piece of software that the experience is pleasant.

We’ve all experienced software and websites that suck – even if they looked pretty. If they’re difficult to use it doesn’t matter how good they look. (A similar comparison could be made to potential mates.)

What about the software itself? Behind the scenes there’s code that the computer processes to make your experience happen. That code doesn’t magically appear. Someone has to create it.

Even mathematicians are creative. Often, to solve the really hard problems they have to look at things in new and different ways. They have to be creative.

Creative people are not necessarily professional artists. They come from all walks of life and their creativity applies to all aspects of our civilization: they may be scientists discovering the hidden laws of the universe or new cures for terminal diseases; business people creating breakthrough opportunities in national economies; lawyers excelling in their field thanks to their creative problem-solving ideas; visionary politicians leading nations to freedom and prosperity; teachers creating innovative methods for the classroom; farmers creating breakthrough methods of farming or breeding; cooks creating culinary masterpieces or revolutionary cooking methods; administrators guiding organizations into success through creative leadership; police detectives solving mysteries and incarcerating criminals thanks to creative thinking. 

Source: http://talentdevelop.com/articles/PracticeCreat.html 

Creativity includes scientific and engineering fields. I would argue that one needs to be more creative in these fields than in something considered traditionally artistic such as painting or sculpting. Success in science and engineering depends on finding solutions to problems that may be considered unsolvable. It also depends on finding better ways of doing things we may already be doing. 

What does this all mean? In general, it means if you have to think or problem solve, then you’re being creative. This assumes you’re not just reaching into a bag of previously known solutions or methods. It’s one thing to solve the problem of fixing a broken facet. It’s another thing entirely to design a faucet that uses magnetic fields instead of pipes to transport the water.

Being creative doesn’t just mean coming up with ideas. There needs to be some action associated with it. The idea about using magnetic fields instead of pipes to transport water is imaginative, but not creative if it isn’t actually created. If it’s considered creative, then the idea itself is very low creative value.

This leads to the question of whether some former of creativity are more valuable than others.

Which Mind Is Creative?

Last week, I was asked how I could consider myself creative if I “live in my head all the time”.  This person believes in a “three mind” theory. That theory says that we have three minds (hence the name): head, heart, and gut. These minds are in those physical locations in the body.

I personally do not believe in this theory. I believe in the “two mind” theory. These minds are conscious and subconscious. It is possible to map the two theories to each other, disregarding the belief in physical location of the minds themselves. Head = conscious mind. This is the rational mind that drives logical thought. Heart = emotions which live in the subconscious mind. We can’t directly control these, but we can exert influence over them – usually by using our head/conscious mind to understand them and adjust our reactions to them.

The final Gut mind is what we could call Intuition and other things we “just know” or otherwise have automatic responses to. These also live in the subconscious and are what we call Habits.

What does mind theory have to do with being creative? You can train yourself to be creative through conscious action by using your head to deliberately search for ideas that are different. You can’t do it with Gut since that’s running on auto-pilot. And while emotions/heart can provide some creative direction depending on what you’re creating, it only works if the thing you’re trying to create is supposed to elicit an emotional response in others. Typically this is reserved for artistic works such as music, plays, paintings, etc. But it gets in the way of other forms of creativity.

If you’re overcome with emotions while trying to design a piece of software or solve a vexing math problem, you probably won’t get very far. In those cases you need to go into Flow State which is devoid of emotions and gives you the focus you need to find a creative solution.

The Creative Process

As strange as it may sound, the creative process is quite a logical one. Creativity stems from practicing being creative. 

Creativity isn’t a talent you either have or you don’t, it’s a skill that you can build….

• The most creative people in any field are people who have a tremendous amount of knowledge. Creative people like Einstein, Edison, Coltrane, and O’Keefe were also experts in their own field.
• One of the five core personality dimensions is openness. It reflects how much you are motivated to consider new ideas, concepts, and experiences. The most creative people are typically very open people.
• The most creative people don’t settle on a single way to think about a problem. Instead, they keep finding new descriptions of that problem and allowing their memory to find more information that might help to solve it. The more different questions they ask, the more creative ideas they have.

Source: https://www.fastcompany.com/3044865/3-ways-to-train-yourself-to-be-more-creative

The above hints that being creative involves knowing a lot about a lot. It also tells us that being open-minded rather than focusing on a single way of doing things guides us into creativity. And lastly, being creative involves asking questions. Often these questions start with “what if…”, but can also start with “why…”  When we ask “what if” and “why” we engage our brains to think differently. What if the sky was green instead of blue? Why is the sky blue? What if our understanding of what blue is is wrong? What if the way you see blue is different from the way I see it?

With these spark ignitors, we can dive into whatever creative activity we want. He next step is both practice AND exploration. It almost goes without saying that the more tools you have to work with the more things you’re capable of doing. The opposite of this is the old adage “if your only tool is a hammer then you see every problem as a nail.”

While the deliberate practice approach tends to focus on highly specialized training and purposeful techniques designed for improvement within a specific field, creative experts tend to have broader interests and greater versatility compared to their less creative expert colleagues.

[emphasis in original]

Source: https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/beautiful-minds/creativity-is-much-more-than-10-000-hours-of-deliberate-practice/

Getting More Creative

What does this all mean for you and your creative potential?

First, you need to have an open mind. Consider new ideas without dismissing them out of hand because of your preconceived notions. Every new idea you listen to becomes a potential spark for you to create something original.

Second, you need to explore a lot of different things. What is “a lot”? At least one more than you’re exploring right now. For example, I’m interested in law and computer science. What’s the overlap? There’s quite a bit. Both law and computers require logical thinking and problem solving. There’s also the general intersection of laws and information security as well as privacy. Expanded to my interest in hiking, and now I’m negotiating whether it’s legal to access a particular trail, and the logistics of what to pack and how to travel to get to where I want to go. Not to mention deciding which technology to bring with me.

Third, you need to practice being creative. If you haven’t done this in a while, then you’ll probably suck at first. But that’s ok. To quote Jake the Dog from Adventure Time, “Sucking at something is the first step to becoming sorta good at something.” Wise words indeed.