Creativity used to live in the realm of stuff that’s pink and fluffy.
It was what artists did,
Or kids, when they were making all that cute stuff,
Or folks doing all those colourful activities in workshops or therapy sessions.
Then suddenly creativity became a business buzz word…
It got gravitas. It became mainstream and desirable, was studied and scrutinised. The word was sprinkled on everything, liberally.
And now? Well, there’s some of it about…
But there’s a heck of a lot of lip service about creativity.
In reality, creativity is treated with suspicion, and for understandable reasons.
Creativity involves experimentation and risk.
It comes arm-in-arm with failure.
And you don’t get applause or rewards for failure.
We don’t get a lot of encouragement to be creative. We don’t get any encouragement to fail. Not from the systems we’re educated in, the organisations we work for, or the society we’re part of.
Yet creativity is essential in times of rapid change. It gives us the tools with which to be flexible, adaptive, and innovative – skills that are key to success and well-being amid turmoil and uncertainty.
So if you want to be happy, keep flexing your creative muscles, keep nudging yourself out of habitual behaviour, and keep on failing.
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