Are You Highly Creative?

Last week a good friend shared with me an interesting article about “18 Things Highly Creative People Do Differently” written by Carolyn Gregoire, a features editor for the Huffington Post.

She quotes Steve Jobs who says, “Creativity is just connecting things.  When you ask creative people how they did something, they feel a little guilty because they didn’t really do it, they just saw something.  It seemed obvious to them after a while.  That’s because they were able to connect experiences they’ve had and synthesize new things.”

I’ve always considered myself to be creative, and I could relate very much to the picture that Gregoire paints. In fact, I scored 18 out of 18.  You might enjoy reading all 18 yourself, and I recommend checking out the entire article here, but wanted to give you a small taste of her ideas here.  A few of my favorite descriptions of what “highly creative people do”:

#3 – They work the hours that work for them.

Many great artists have said that they do their best work either very early in the morning or late at night. Vladimir Nabokov started writing immediately after he woke up at 6 or 7 a.m., and Frank Lloyd Wright made a practice of waking up at 3 or 4 a.m. and working for several hours before heading back to bed. No matter when it is, individuals with high creative output will often figure out what time it is that their minds start firing up, and structure their days accordingly.

#7 – They fail up.

Resilience is practically a prerequisite for creative success, says Kaufman. Doing creative work is often described as a process of failing repeatedly until you find something that sticks, and creatives — at least the successful ones — learn not to take failure so personally.

“Creatives fail and the really good ones fail often,” Forbes contributor Steven Kotler wrote in a piece on Einstein’s creative genius.

#10 – They take risks.

Part of doing creative work is taking risks, and many creative types thrive off of taking risks in various aspects of their lives.

“There is a deep and meaningful connection between risk taking and creativity and it’s one that’s often overlooked,” contributor Steven Kotler wrote in Forbes.  “Creativity is the act of making something from nothing. It requires making public those bets first placed by imagination. This is not a job for the timid. Time wasted, reputation tarnished, money not well spent — these are all by-products of creativity gone awry.”

To see all 18 of the attributes of highly creative people, click here.

According to the article, creative people also lose track of the time. When I’m writing I have to deliberately check my watch every hour or two, so that I’ll be on time for my next appointment.  If I was a little more clever I would set an alarm on my smart phone, but I don’t because when I’m writing I do not want to be interrupted abruptly.  (To be entirely fair, I must also report that I have to delete all computer games as soon as I find them.  One Saturday I arrived at my office at 9:00 am and promised myself that I would play only two games of mahjongg on my computer.  Suddenly I realized that it was 4:00 pm, and that I hadn’t opened a single file or even eaten lunch.)

Being creative can be a lot of fun.  But it’s not always instantly productive.  Maybe it’s good for dieting.

Alan

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