Creativity Breeds Innovation

Creativity is such a buzz word. Everyone is talking about getting creative. But...putting all trends aside...creativity is a part of our human nature. So to be human is to create. 

We create every day. Just take mornings for example. We create our outfit for the day, our breakfast, and the plans for how to most effectively manage our schedule. These are things we do anew every morning. They are habitual. 

Therein lies the secret. Habit. Such a valuable creation! It's so wonderful that creativity is innate and that we already have this valuable skill. So creating the habit just means acknowledging that and then taking action. ​

So, today I write about getting in touch with that most human part of us, tapping into it as an incredibly intelligent resource, and creating huge results in our work...

Creativity

A few weeks ago I unveiled my Manifesto + Toolkit on generating income and impact in the new economy. In it, I revealed the 4 Cs or the new strategies for success in the new economy movement. One of the vital Cs is creativity, vital because it is a core desire for almost every human being to be creative. Even those of us that have labeled ourselves as logical and analytical, secretively desire to be creative. 

Creativity is there waiting to burst out. if you aren't utilizing it, chances are that your past conditioning, most likely from childhood, is at work. Your parents or siblings might have obsessively said you were a certain way and it stuck with you. We show those behaviors and talents for a reason. But we are ever-evolving. An analytical mind does not mean that you lack creativity. 

You can be both. You can be many things. This is where habits become your greatest ally. Both in your personal life and professional life. I'm going to focus on the professional life for this article, but you will be able to apply it to your personal life as well.

Another big trend word for the past several years has been INNOVATION. Innovation is often grouped along with creativity. Most people think creativity and innovation are one in the same. They aren't. 

Innovation is just one of the outcomes of being creative. Creativity leads to innovation and breeds innovation. But it must come first. So, if you and your organization are working on being innovative...get creative, every day.

Creativity is also going to help keep you perform. It keeps you motivated and encourages consistent action. What is going to drive you day-to-day? Creativity is the kindling that ignites the drive to action. Get creative with your services, your communications, your time, and how you spend it. Get creative with your programs and how you deliver them. Flexibility and change, which are characteristics of the new economy, become much more approachable (and easy to navigate) when you are in creativity mode.

To sum it up, creativity helps you to take consistent action in your business, to stay flexible, and be open to opportunities. It breeds innovation. How many of you would achieve a high level of growth if you could harness these things? The results would be phenomenal. Let's talk about how to get there.

The Practice

To generate phenomenal results, you have to practice daily. I know that EVERY DAY is a tall order. But once you start this habit you won't know how you operated without it. I highly recommend developing a daily habit of creativity. Spend 30 minutes to an hour working creatively. What does that look like? You can approach it in any number of ways. Here are some suggestions.

Your daily creativity time should include complete engagement of your body and mind.

• JOURNAL: Journaling needs to be free writing. Just stream of consciousness. No editing. Let it flow through you. Flow isn't something you can all upon instantly, at least I know I can't. But here is a way to start getting into the flow. Ask yourself questions. Any questions. What is my favorite color and why? What is my favorite song? These questions get you to start writing something...anything. And soon the words will start flowing onto the page. But remember...don't edit...just write.
• DRAW: Doodling, sketching, and painting are all excellent ways to get your creative mind completely engaged. Again, the idea here is not necessarily to develop the skill to draw, sketch, or paint, but rather to use these as tools to access a part of your brain that holds great ideas, solutions, and answers.
• MUSIC & MOVEMENT: Listening to music and moving to it are also very effective for engaging the body and mind. Turn on music that has medium to low-intensity beat and just move.
• MEDITATION: Meditation is a great way to get in touch with the other intelligent parts of your body and brain that we too often neglect. Meditation not only engages the brain, but it also engages the body, putting us in touch with a deep intelligence that is held in our bodies. It helps with optimal brain connectivity, a key to creativity.

If you have a team of people you work with, make one of these things or all of them a part of weekly meetings and permit staff to spend 30 minutes to 1 hour engaging their brains and bodies daily. 

In the beginning, you want to focus on this work without an agenda. Try it out for 30 days. After those 30 days, you can start to direct yourself to engage the brain to come up with outcomes. Create an agenda for how your 30 minutes to 1 hour will be used. You can start by drawing, then journaling to reach solutions to problems, to generate new ideas for services and programs, or to design new ways to approach marketing and communications strategies. I also use these practices to help me set my annual goals. Something I do towards the end of every year before heading into the new one.

It's when we start calling upon the full potential of our brain and body to provide us with solutions and ideas that we begin to generate phenomenal results. It is when and how innovation happens. 

Succeed in Your New Practice

We all need help starting something new because it can be difficult and challenging. I want you to succeed in your effort to establish a daily creativity practice. Here are some resources.

1. Inc. magazine just published an article on what you need to do to help boost creativity. Follow these tips to give yourself an advantage in establishing creativity in daily practice. 

2. There are several books I use as tools to aid me in my daily practice.

• The Creativity Habit by Twyla Tharp - A great book for getting motivated and helping to establish a daily practice. Complete with examples the author uses.
• One Zentangle a Day by Beckah Krahula - A 6-week course to help you draw abstract art meditatively
• Creativity Workout by Edward De Bono - Provides 62 exercises to help you unlock your creative ideas
• The Soul of RUMI Translated by Coleman Barks - A book of poetry to ignite right-brain synapses and stir up feelings and emotions in your body

All of these books are available through Amazon, or your local bookstore can order them, You can also check them out at your library.​

So, tell me some ways you've gotten your brain and body engaged. How have you used creativity to be innovative in your work? Share with me below. If you haven't employed creativity as a tool in your work, then get to developing your creative practice right now! It is time to reach phenomenal results.

To your illumination!
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