Sometimes we confuse artistic ability with creativity.

If I can’t paint or draw, I’m not creative.

Artistic ability includes skills and talent to create fine works of art: painting, drawing, sculpting, musical composition, etc.

Creativity ability is the skill and talent to use our imagination to create and solve.

A better artist is creative. But, you don’t have to be an artist to be creative.

We’re creative all the time and don’t realize it.

• When mom or dad ad-libs lunch for the kids, pulling together something yummy when it seemed there were no ingredients in the fridge.
• When the radio announces traffic is stopped on our route home and we figure out a route taking the back roads home.
• When the company Christmas Party invitation had a typo and you added the missing punctuation with a Sharpie – and no one knew the difference.

Each of these examples required use of imagination and experience to apply a creative solution to a problem or challenge.

We’ve got to stop selling ourselves short. We artificially hold ourselves back by giving up on imaginative thinking because we’re not portrait artists.

What’s cool, when you let yourself be creative… the more you think and act creatively, the more creative you become. Like exercising muscles, the more you use them, the stronger they become.

Resolve to yourself… Flip that switch in your mind about the way you think of yourself… beginning right now, and when you finish reading this article – to simply “be” more creative.

If you want a bit more guidance, check out the following books…

Aha! 10 Ways to Free Your Creative Spirit and Find Your Great Ideas by Jordan Ayan

101 Creative Problem Solving Techniques: The Handbook of New Ideas for Business by James Higgins