Creative Confidence

Creative Confidence helps break the mundanity of everyday work and life by exploring the power that being more innovative has to improve happiness and success in many different areas.

When I was younger, I didn’t like art beyond the occasional doodle in the margins of my notebooks. I think a lot of this was because adults taught me that art means paintings, which is something I really don’t like much.

The years passed and I stayed as far away from drawing as I could by majoring in engineering. As I got my first job and enjoyed crunching numbers and using science, I realized something about creativity. The previous definition of art that everyone tried to engrain in me was totally wrong.

I was using plenty of innovation to find solutions to all sorts of engineering problems. In other words, I was an artist!

What I learned is something that we all need to realize, and thankfully many parts of society are catching on. Many analytical positions, like programmers and CEOs, are now included as creative careers. This makes sense considering all of the innovation that both of these positions require.

The good news is that you can utilize this skill even if you’re the victim of teachers and others telling you to suppress it. Everyone is born creative and we express it well when we’re young, but as we grow it tends to dwindle. But it’s like a muscle that you can re-activate with a little training.

A good example is one MRI technician that used innovative thinking to help children feel safer inside the scanners. He used his imagination to update the look of the machines to be fun adventures, like a pirate ship.

Maybe you’re like me and you remember the time when everybody thought that only artsy people were creative. Or perhaps you’re lucky enough to see just how old fashioned this idea has become. In the past, the artistic types felt doomed to remain at the “kids table” of careers, letting the adults in analytical professions handle the grown-up stuff. We see this creativity suppression even in schools where teachers expect kids to color inside the lines and be rational. Where once people thought that there’s no place for creativity in the average workplace, these days it’s spreading like wildfire. Now it’s not just the painters, sculptors, and singers who make art or innovate. Even Paul McCartney often heard that he should give up his musical desires for something more “practical.” Thank goodness he ignored that terrible advice! The sad fact is a lot of this still goes around, but we are improving. Many companies see the value in letting their employees try to innovate to…