Today we continue with the last 4 steps to begin initiating your creative process:
The fourth step, wait for it! What do we wait for? Clarity! The moment when the light suddenly comes on, the darkness disappears, and your mind clearly pictures the idea you’ve been searching for. It often occurs when you least expect it…like while you’re sitting in a beautiful garden listening to the birds.
Fifth, test it! Give your idea a try! Confirm it. Your brilliant solution must now be verified. Are you open to evaluation and criticism? Can you sincerely assess possible shortcomings and faults? Honest assessment is a vital part of the creative process!
Remember, creativity requires courage! Sir Ken Robinson, author and international advisor on education in the Arts says, “If you’re not prepared to be wrong, you will never come up with anything original.”
Sixth, get up again! As an inventor, Thomas Edison made 1,000 unsuccessful attempts to invent the incandescent light bulb! Edison’s teachers had said he was “too stupid to learn anything.” When asked about his repeated lightbulb failures, he simply said that he had discovered 1,000 ways not to build a lightbulb! Edison’s 1,000 attempts were not failure but discovery! Learn to celebrate your failures and embrace discovery!
Seventh, remember, you are in it to win it! Now that you’ve refined your idea, it’s time to plan it, grow it, and build it. This is where the real work begins. Like a long distance runner, you are now launching a journey that will require training, resources, and energy. Keep looking forward! Some of the greatest creativity ever displayed by humanity is a result of thousands of hours of laborious experimentation.
How do we initiate the creative process? Does it require hours of educational training? For years, my husband has been committed to some type of daily writing. In the early years of our marriage he wrote 6 pages a day on the topic that he was studying. As technology progressed he moved into writing a daily blog. Now he writes books by writing at least one well thought out page each day. His structure for writing is much clearer and his goals are simplified, but he continues to place a constant demand upon his creativity.
How do you begin? For the next two days we will look at 7 steps essential to unlocking your Creativity.
First, see it! Define the problem you need to solve or the project you want to create. Look at it from different perspectives. In other words, keep reframing the idea, researching for insights from different viewpoints.
Second, go for a plunge! Dive deep into the materials you’ve gathered. Don’t just stick your toe in the edge of the water, immerse yourself. Allow the reality of what you expect to solve or create to consume your thoughts.
Third, think on these things! The point is to let the information steep like a tea bag in hot water. All the seedlings of information you have gathered can now sprout in the soil of your mind. How? Take a break! Go for a walk—ponder the information!
My brother-in-law Pat is one of those amazing individuals who exemplifies the “courage to care.” Several years ago he was fighting a fire in downtown Detroit, a city that is infamous for the fires set in its scores of abandoned buildings.
What did Pat do? He jumped through a tiny basement window just in time to stop a man from setting a policewoman on fire! Somehow Pat wrestled her free of the assailant who had just doused her with gasoline and had a lighter in his hand! His act of courage saved the woman, the house, and possibly his entire company.
I asked Pat, “How did you do this?” His response was simple: “You do the things you must to protect people. I am not sure I even thought about it…I just acted!”
I want to challenge you today to act on your instinct to help! Don’t be a bystander in life when you can be a participator! You can find the courage to care and you can change your nation, your family and your life!
Don’t ask what life can do for you, but ask, “What can I do to better the lives of others?” Remember Jesus said, Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends!
Scripture: John 15:13 (NIV)
In the spring of 1883 two young men graduated from medical school. The two differed from one another in both appearance and ambition. Ben was short and stocky. Will was tall and thin. Ben dreamed of practicing medicine on the affluent United States East Coast. Will wanted to work in a rural community.
Ben begged his friend to go to New York where they could both make a fortune. Will refused. His friend called him foolish for wanting to practice medicine in rural USA. “First of all,” Will said, “I want to be a great surgeon. The very best, if I have the ability.”
Years later the wealthy and powerful came from around the world to be treated by Will at his clinic. Today, the Mayo Clinic is one of the leading educational and research hospitals in the world. Why? Because someone chose a life mission to be the very best they could be, and in doing so opened a pathway for scores of others to follow!
Who is your neighbor? Who are you required to help in this world? Should you be involved in the business of rescuing others, or is it just better to sit by and watch people suffer?
A religious leader asked Jesus, “Who is my neighbor?” Jesus replied with a story about a man who was attacked by robbers. They stripped him of his clothes and beat him, leaving him almost dead.
A priest saw the injured man and quickly passed on the opposite side of the road. So did a second priest! Then a Samaritan man, considered lowlier than a dog but evidently having some wealth, took pity on the stranger, bandaged his wounds, put him in an inn and cared for him.
Jesus then posed this question, “Which of these three men was a neighbor to the man who fell into the hand of the robbers?” The religious leader responded, “The one who had mercy on him.”
In every human soul, there is a void—an emptiness, waiting to be filled. What will you pursue to fill that void? Success? Family? Prosperity? Education? Or are you willing to step out and set a different standard for your life? A standard that can make a difference?
What is hope? Is it a feeling? A force? Or could it be something as simple as the picture of a bright future? From Parade magazine comes the story of self-made millionaire, Eugene Land, who greatly changed the lives of a 6th grade class in East Harlem. Though located near the more affluent areas of New York City, East Harlem is notorious for its violent crime rates and poor education.
Mr. Lang was asked to speak to 59 sixth-graders. What could he say to inspire these students, most of whom would surely drop out of school? He wondered how he could get these predominantly black and Puerto Rican children to even look at him!
Scrapping his notes, he decided to speak to them from his heart. “Stay in school, and I’ll help pay the college tuition for every one of you.” In that moment, their lives changed. For the first time they had hope. One student said, “I had something to look forward to. It was a golden feeling.” Nearly 90 percent of that class went on to graduate from high school!
For these young students, the promise of an education provided a picture of a new outcome for their lives! Instead of facing the harsh reality that they would spend their lives on the streets struggling like most of their friends, they now had opportunity to break their financial and educational barriers and to rise to a new future! http://bit.ly/1cufu9O
Today we look at the last of our three Power-Phrases that will help you overcome the obstacles and hindrances you will encounter on the way to realizing your dream.
Power-Phrase #3: The difference between great and small people is that while all may fall, small people just fall, but great people get up again.
You see, positive thinking is the power to look at your situation and find just one positive aspect, one positive thought that you can hold on to in order to transform your negative situation into an opportunity!
Regardless of what you may face today remember this, never give up! You may be at the end of your rope but remember—one positive thought has the power to loosen the grip of impossibility and propel you forward into possibility!
Today we continue with the next power phrase to help you develop the positive kind of thinking necessary to turn your negative situations into opportunities:
Power-Phrase #2: “Great people are ordinary people with extraordinary determination.”
Standing before a large audience of farmers, Dr. Schuller recalled another family tragedy. During the great depression and several years before the tornado disaster mentioned in the previous blog post, a drought destroyed the family crops, forcing his father to mortgage everything to survive. Dr. Schuller recalled entering the bank and seeing a sign on the wall that stated “Great people are ordinary people with extraordinary determination.”
Five years after the destructive tornado, Schuller’s father had completely rebuilt the farm, paid off the mortgage taken after the Great Depression drought, and retired a successful man!
Have you ever considered how to generate a positive thought? Over the next three days I want to introduce 3 “Power-Phrases” for you to frequently recite. Allow them to fill your sails with the wind of positive expectation!
Power-Phrase #1: Tough times never last, but tough people do.
This phrase comes from the title of one of over 37 books authored by Dr. Robert Schuller, pioneer of the first televised church service.
Living positive in a negative world, or developing positive–thinking patterns in difficult situations, provides the creative energy and stamina necessary to tackle life’s biggest challenges.
You may be thinking, if you only knew the problems I’m facing! Well, Dr. Schuller’s family certainly had their own share of problems. His own father, at the age of 60, lost everything when a devastating tornado destroyed their livestock, their crops, their family home and their barn. Nothing was left! Ten farms were utterly destroyed by that storm—only one man rebuilt! http://bit.ly/1Jvt5rc
Do you realize that you have God-implanted creativity sensors? Fundamental to creative thought is an awareness of the 5 senses: smell, sight, touch, hearing and taste! Stimulation of the 5 senses is a powerful tool in developing creative thought!
Did you know that the sense of smell is located in the part of the brain that effects emotions, memory and creativity? Aromas such as vanilla and cinnamon are known to stimulate creativity. A trip to the market could open up a world of creative thought for you today!
Do you recognize that color can promote feelings of creativity, enhance the power of focus or stimulate a sense of urgency? Color has significant meaning in religious and meditative thought.
What about sound? Are you aware that ambient music can improve creativity? According to the Journal of Consumer Research, ambient sound levels ranging from 50 to 70 decibels can increase creative productivity. These moderate sound levels stimulate the mind to activity. This is not an exercise in turn-up-the-music-as-loud-as-possible, but rather an exercise in creating a mood that will cause your thoughts to flow.
Have you tapped into the spiritual aspect of your creativity? I am not simply talking about an awareness that God gave you 5 senses, I am referring to divine empowerment by God! http://bit.ly/18TgVN2
