Creativity is good for the bad
By René Da Costa
For those of us who are naturally creative thinkers or doers we may count
ourselves fortunate. If you only aspire to be
recognised as creative then don’t despair, it can be developed with surprisingly
little effort. What are the benefits of
thinking creatively? Obviously, it allows you do the things that bring you
the most pleasure. However, with a little
practice it can also bring the most reward.
Whether your creative passion is as a musician, an author or as an entrepreneur
what is likely to prevent you turning a
bedroom hobby into a rewarding career is not your ability to be creative in
your passion but in you ability to adapt
creativity to overcoming the obstacles in achieving your ambitions.
It still surprises me when naturally creative people do not apply that creativity
to problem solving and then fail to
capitalise fully on their talent. If you aspire to be an author you must do
more than just write well. You must find and
convince a publisher of your worth and unless you have supreme good fortune
you will face countless rejections.
Whatever your ambition you will have to manage elements that you dislike or
are inexperienced in and here is where
too many of us fail needlessly. By channelling your natural flair for developing
a catchy melody into a focused approach
towards problem solving you will capitalise more fully from your talents.
One of my client’s who was a naturally gifted poet came to me for help
because she was finding the constant rejections
from publishers demoralising and was ready to give up. Her talent for poetry
was real and to my mind excellent, but
what was preventing her from really succeeding was her inability to think creatively
outside her writing. Like many
authors her desire was to move here audience, to change their perception.
She is now in negotiations to publish one of her poems. Which one? It is a
poem about rejection. I encouraged her to
turn the bitter disappointment of each rejection into a verse of a poem about
rejection. After all, who among us does
not understand intensely the pain of rejection? How can we fail to be moved
by it?
What can a simple change in thinking do for you? Take a look around you, many
of the things that bring you pleasure or
make your life easier are due to innovation from failed projects. How often
have you heard of an invention being
inspired by a failure to achieve its original objective? The stumbling block
to his or her primary objective lead to a new
and better idea that brought an unexpected success.
Your first step is to really understand your creative thinking process so
you can capitalise on it in new ways. Your talent
may be instinctive and natural but it will be based upon a real and definable
skill that only you have. Analyse your gift
and develop your ability to apply it to many different tasks, good and bad.
Use your good creative instincts for the bad
and you will soon reap the rewards. •
© 2005 René Da Costa
About the Author
René Da Costa is an author, consultant and coach. He says, "To be
successful you must understand and apply political and social innovation to complement
core technical skills." Known as the "think differently" coach
he helps you to invigorate your only renewable resource, your brain.
02/27/05
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