By: Aditya Mehrotra
“Your visions will become clear only when you can look into your own heart. Who looks outside, dreams; who looks inside, awakes.” – Carl Jung
When we talk about one’s creativity, some of the questions that come to our mind are, “how do they think differently and what are the things people do differently that makes them more creative?” I believe it is one of the biggest challenges to understand how we all can enhance our creative abilities. Sometimes people in doubt ask themselves that what is the need for them to be creative in nature. I solely feel it is extremely important in today’s super dynamic work and social environment to understand the need to be creative towards all aspects of life to make their way of living better and it is also important to understand that if we can be creative, what should we use it for.
Statistics show that 75% of people feel that they are not living upto their potential. Does that mean that we don’t have enough opportunities to be creative or does it mean that we are not creating opportunities to be creative?
Creativity allows us basically to express ourselves, it pushes us to bring out the fire in our soul, that we already have within us. How we bring out our creative potential allows people to appreciate and value it and also to gain inspiration from it. This is one aspect which can change relationships in the sense that it can bring in a better form of connect between people. For instance, you may have a friend who is creative at something and you wish to understand how he/she is able to do that. The urge to understand and your wish to be able to do the same thing that your friend is able to do will spark a similar amount of creativity in you enhancing your intellect as well.
The ultimate reason why we need to understand this is to raise our self awareness. It is one of life’s biggest challenges to know our capabilities and what we can do. The concept of creativity and the need to know and enhance our creative intellect can help us overcome this challenge. Honestly, this concept is so beautiful, it is often a spur and an anomaly, it doesn’t usually happen in a day. To enhance and discover your creative abilities you must connect to more things in life which basically means that you need to showcase and expose yourself to several activities which would allow you to experience a new type of style or a procedure of achieving a task, thereby, unleashing a newer form of a creative intellect to reach out to your potential.
One of the most important things ,I believe, to enhance your creativity is to be aware of your surroundings and to notice the processes and procedures people follow around you to achieve their goals. It could be your friends, family, teachers, people you come across everyday. Place yourself in their shoes to understand their style of work and compare your ideologies with theirs to really understand the difference. Similarly in the same situation if you are able to identify any form of innovation that you may be able to bring if you were to perform the same task, then you are able to widen your horizon. If you wish to understand the level of creativity and innovation you may be able to bring in to a group activity, it is definitely a great option to conduct Brainstorming Sessions within the group, and that to on a regular basis. A brainstorming session’s best advantage is that it inculcates a sense of active participation and pitching in of ideas by all the members which in another sense also brings a sense of competition within the group members to bring out the best solution, which in turn, unleashes the ultimate solution to the specific task.
It is also about how we perceive things that make us more creative. If you find something stressful, if you feel excited or even if you feel angry, use it to do something creative and to turn it into something positive. It will also teach you how to transform that in a habitual way. Often I have noticed that we are too much into observing people, basically seeing the invisible. We judge people by the clothes they wear, their hairstyle and many other externals which in reality has the least amount of impact on their personality. Because of this we miss out on the things that can help us gain more experience in life and this definitely blocks our intellectual growth.
So ultimately it’s all about being more aware about ourselves and exploring the unexplored which by turning it into a habit can unleash our creative potential.