I have always been amazed at how the things I read end up being related to one another. I don't know if they're really related to one another, or I just invent connections between them, but my most recent chain of associations started with this post over at the hbr blog site. The post is about the vulnerability of entrepreneurs. They are taking a risk by starting a new business. Any time you take risk, you open yourself to criticism and failure. That kind of exposure can be pretty scary. Later that night I was reading a chapter in a book about problem solving in the context of creativity. The chapter is just a review of other work, but one of the studies that they discuss identified personality traits of creative people. Creative people tend to be more willing to take risks, are open to new experiences, they are persistent, and are tolerant of ambiguity. Both the blog post and book chapter reminded me of this manifesto over at changethis.com.

What idea path did these random associations lead to for me? Well, let me tell you. At it's heart, creativity is really just deviating from the status quo. Something is creative when it defies somebody's expectations, expectations that have been established by experiencing the normal, average, mundane, experiences of everyday life. Creativity is just the willingness to reach beyond the everyday for something different and new. To be creative, you have to be willing to take a risk that the new thing will not succeed, what ever criteria that you have put in place for success. A status quo education/developmental experience does not challenge us to defy expectations and find ways to change the way things are. If anything, we are actually taught to be afraid of putting ourselves out there for fear of being ridiculed or mocked when something doesn't work as hoped. People never practice creativity so they just think that they aren't creative.

Creativity is really just a willingness to fail. If you are willing to put some crazy idea out there for other people to evaluate, you are being creative. When somebody says they don't have a fresh idea, do they not have an idea or are they not willing to share the ideas that they are having? Building creativity is just getting in the habit of offering new ideas. Not every idea needs to be fully evaluated and fleshed out prior to proposal. Just get it out there.

Creativity isn't purely a talent. It's a skill. Building that skill requires the willingness to open yourself to criticism, to being vulnerable. We all have the power to do that, we're just not all equally willing to act in that manner. The more I read by Ericsson, the more I realize that our limitations are largely self-imposed. So much achievement is attributed to talent and innate ability that we just figure that certain acts are outside of our ability. That's not true. Achievement is more about how we choose to apply our energies and direct our focus. It's easier to say that creativity is a natural ability that I lack. It's much harder to pursue actions that may make me more creative (or thinner, or more athletic, or a better parent, or whatever skill I happen to have in mind at a given moment).

The more I recognize that my achievements are the result of consistent effort and focus on a particular task, the challenge becomes determining how I should spend my time. That's the really tricky question...