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

2/27/05