Every time I hear someone say “You are so creative. I’m not.” or “I’m not creative at all”, I shake my head in great disbelief and then reply: oh yes, my dear, you are! Let me show you how.

In the past few years, I have helped individuals and teams to leverage their creative thinking. Either at work by asking provocative questions and visualising scenarios most people would call unrealistic, or in a few (I call them) analytical conversations or in creative lunch & learn sessions. I uncovered for example the limiting beliefs of an IT professional who was holding himself back from picking up an old beloved passion: photography. He had neglected it over the past few years and didn’t see the benefits in pursuing it anymore. Challenging the “I can’t do this, I can’t do that” combined with practical tips on how to make time for a hobby when having a busy schedule was all he needed to get started.

If you have kids, look at how they use their creativity and come up with their own solutions and ideas. You have once been that kid, hence you can still tap into that creativity. The main challenge we all face these days, is the lack of awareness that creativity is a skill everyone can use and master. The majority doesn’t know how to integrate creativity into daily life, let alone how to take steps to become better at creative thinking.

Why is that? On the one hand, and as I mentioned above, it’s the UNAWARENESS that creates that limited thinking; on the other hand, we have FEAR that blocks us. The fear of not being good enough, of looking stupid or naive, the fear of dealing with uncomfortable emotions that possibly come with failure and judgement.

“You can’t use up creativity. The more you use, the more you have.” - Maya Angelou

The widely spread misconception of creativity that it belongs to a select few artists keeps people in the belief that you need talent to be called creative. And this sadly keeps them away from tapping into their own creative potential. Also, creativity is often being perceived as something less serious, with no real ROI or other tangible outcomes. Rarely are the creative skills of scientists linked to the new vaccine they’ve developed to save an entire planet from a virus for instance. But those results are actually linked to the creative ability of an individual or teams who solved huge and complex problems.

Now, here are 3 things you will need to change to make first steps towards leveraging your own creative potential:

1. Know that creativity is ingrained in all humans.

2. Stop judging your ideas! Write them down and put them out there.

3. Watch this!

Embrace this beautiful messy but creative world. If you have questions or need more help, get in touch.