Embracing Creativity

When you were a child, you may remember that you and your friends were into playing imaginary characters in imaginary situations. You also most likely were into an art form, such as drawing, painting, making sculptors with clay, and other activities that generally come under the jurisdiction of creativity. Somewhere along the way, as you got older, you left all that behind you and became a different person as you became an adult. However, when you became an adult, you noticed that there are many situations in which having a creative mind could have helped you. Thinking-ot-of-the-box is closely linked with being creative, and it is a valuable skill. Fortunately, there are steps you can follow to get some of those skills back, which you had as a child.

Successful businesspeople and entrepreneurs are usually creative people by nature. You cannot be successful as a merchant, regardless of what you are selling, unless those gears are moving inside your head. The following are some ways in which you can embrace your creativity to come up with new ideas for solutions.

Start Accepting Your Creative Side

The American Psychological Association (APA) does not agree with the notion that people are either born to be creative or not. The APA believes that creativity can be developed and fostered by taking some simple steps.

• Start jotting down ideas that pop up in your head. Creative people do this by carrying around a diary or recording into a digital device. Not only will you not forget what you thought off by recording it, but it will also stimulate the mind to come up with more ideas
• Your state of mind is an essential factor in staying creative. Generally speaking, it is always better to try and stay happy. Depression is a creativity killer. Physical exercise is a great way to beat depression
• Mental activities, such as trying to solve challenging puzzles, can be useful. Even just using your imagination to try and solve impossible ideas will prompt you to think out-of-the-box
• Once you get a creative idea, think about it for some time. Sometimes, when sleeping at night, you may even have dreams connected to it and get even more ideas
• Do not sit at your desk all day, thinking about an idea. Get up occasionally and go for a walk. Perhaps it is because of more blood flow, but walking while thinking can boost your imagination and help the light bulb go off

So far, we’ve looked at some general ideas regarding creativity enhancement. However, there are many ways you can help increase employees’ creative side at the workplace by taking some steps. The following are some of the more popular steps you can take as a manager or business owner or a teacher/instructor to get your employees' creative juices flowing.

The Osborne-Parnes Method

One of the oldest methods to help foster creativity at the workplace is by using the Osborne-Parnes Method. It is as follows:

• Fact-finding and gathering data
• Finding the problem and clarifying it
• Idea finding
• Solution finding
• Goal finding
• Plan on implementing ideas

Congenial Environment

The environment you are in plays a huge role in encouraging creative behavior. After all, the workplace is a place where you spend a big chunk of your life. Therefore, it is crucial to create a work environment that generally has a creative atmosphere.

Things Teachers and Instructors Can do

It is not only managers and business owners who can help with creativity, but educators as well. You might as well do the necessary steps since creativity can be taught.

• Creativity can be divided into two types; big C and little C. Big C involves large, society-changing ideas, whereas little C deals with day-to-day, practical solutions
• Take advantage of the various tools available to teach creativity. Some of the most effective ones are using media-oriented, creative art forms, as well as artifacts. It should make students use their emotional and cognitive abilities. Sometimes old objects trigger the viewers' imagination as they try and figure out how it was created and used
• The classroom or meeting room should be a place where people can feel free to express ideas, no matter how outlandish it may seem at first

Some Honorable Mentions

There are numerous ways in which you can help people embrace their creative side. In fact, figuring out ways in which to get people to get in touch with creativity, can itself be a creative journey. However, nothing can be achieved unless there is discipline, resilience, imagination, collaboration, and inclusion.