Creativity is an Investment
An article on Fast Company titled “How to Cultivate a Creative Habit” looks at how individuals can train their brains to be more creative, rather than waiting for inspiration to strike like a mystical lightning bolt. The article follows the work of psychologist and psychometrician Robert Sternberg who has been studying creativty and innovations. According to Sternberg, creativity is not some magical event bestowed upon the few, it’s a habit, similar to biting your nails and if we make creativity something we simply do all the time, it’ll become something that naturally occurs.
Sternberg also explains how creativity is an investment — and this is the real inspiring part for me — saying, “creative people are ones who are willing and able to metaphorically buy low and sell high in the realm of ideas,” adding:
"The creative individual persists in the face of this resistance, and eventually sells high, moving on to the next new, or unpopular, idea. In other words, such an individual acquires the creativity habit. The question is whether the creative thinker has the fortitude to persevere and to go against the crowd."
So being creative is not a mystical gift, which, for some folks, that could be bummer. But, according to Sternberg, it’s the creative person is the one who has the guts to persevere when the idea seems unpopular.
We’re the brave ones. We’re the strong ones. We’re the ones who swim upstream. And that’s pretty inspiring.
"The Scientist" by Affectors
