“I don’t have a creative bone in my body.” “What we need on this project is some creative thinking.” “I just don’t have time to be creative.”
If that is your self-talk, you are not alone. In 2012 Adobe’s State of Create study surveyed 5,000 adults in the United States, the United Kingdom, Germany, France, and Japan. It found a real workplace creativity gap:
- 8 in 10 said unlocking creativity is critical to economic growth
- Only 1 in 4 believed they were living up to their creative potential
- 75 percent felt growing pressure to be productive rather than creative at work
- People said they spent only about 25 percent of work time creating
- 70 percent of Americans in the survey felt creativity was taken for granted in the education system (more than half said so globally)
How do you bring creative thinking back? It can be learned—or relearned. Children do it naturally. Somewhere along the way many of us get the message that original thought is less safe than blending in.
Creativity and how we see ourselves often travel together. Some studies find a positive link between creative thinking and self-esteem; that is a correlation, not proof that one causes the other. Still, practicing original thought is one way people feel more like themselves.
Ten ways to get the juices moving
- Stop saying you are not creative. That sentence is the first block.
- Notice more. Look at ordinary details, then at the problem you actually need to solve.
- Stay open. Ask questions. Try something new. Be curious on purpose.
- Listen without scoring the other person. A like, a retweet, or a snap comment is not the same as hearing them.
- Leave room to think. The brain needs idle time to connect ideas.
- Follow an old passion. What did you love as a child? That path often leads back to a natural creative stance.
- Study, then play. Painters do not ship a masterpiece on the first canvas. A first draft is not a finished book.
- Take a real risk. Safe choices rarely produce new ones.
- Stay with it. Edison did not invent the light bulb in one try, and he did not work alone. His lab tested hundreds—by some accounts more than a thousand—filament materials before a practical bulb lasted. The first attempt should not be the last.
- Put in the hours. Let yourself get lost in the work. This does not happen overnight. Anything worth having takes time. Invest in the habit and the results have a place to grow.