Reconnecting with creativity

Do you remember what it was like to be a kid? We didn’t have the answers to everything so we needed to figure it out. Not knowing what the ‘right thing’ was never limited how we experienced and understood the world.

Earlier in the year, I decided to ‘be a kid’ and play in a trampoline playground that was set up for the Sydney Festival. It was 9am and the decision was spontaneous. I was the first one there and I started jumping. Timidly at first, then with more spring and hang time. After two minutes I thought I had got the most out of the playground, I got bored and shared a photo on Facebook. But then some young kids trickled in. They raced across trampolines, they crossed their legs in the air and bounced with their legs tucked in, or lay flat on their backs. They flipped in the air and shook the trampolines while I watched in the corner and tried to stay on my feet. I thought to myself ‘Wow. I used to do that stuff.

I went to The Creativity Workshop in New York to learn how to bring creativity into my life. I came to realise creativity isn’t something that only ‘creative’ people have. It’s inside of each of us, but we just bully it so much and don’t let it come out for many reasons like ‘this won’t work’ or ‘that’s lame, don’t say that’… We are too concerned with doing things the ‘right way’ that we miss the opportunities to practice being creative. It’s so easy to default to ‘that’s how we do things here’ or ‘I’ve done that before, I know how to do it’. This stance automatically limits our ability to be playful and discover new ways of doing and being everyday – it limits our creativity.

Throughout the workshop, I reconnected with my creativity. I learned that creative ideas are shaped by the unique experiences we have as individuals throughout our lives – our impulses, gut instincts and how we think are one-of-a-kind and valid. I learnt to have confidence in my own perspective, and to externalise those seemingly ridiculous ideas before throwing them away. I believe creativity has a role to play in the way we solve problems, and I now associate creativity with being able to take risks and make leaps that may not make sense for others. I am learning that for creativity to thrive in me, I need to consciously separate it from any form of judgment and critique.

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This post is the first of a couple of posts about my experience at The Creativity Workshop. Next time, I’ll share some techniques I learnt at the workshop and describe how I’ve began to use them in my own world.