Creativity happens right in the human brain. The frontal lobe opens the doors to creative ideas and solutions, while the temporal lobe helps you to assess which creative efforts are valuable and insightful. This goes on constantly, day and night, and is essential to our human ability to understand and shape our environment.
So why--you ask--are people ever not creative? The answer is also in the brain. Our brains use creativity to find useful patterns in the world around us; a trait developed way back when we were hunter-gatherers who needed to know when would be a good time to look for ripe berries. The only problem with being good at patterns is that we can get stuck on repeating them, even when they are longer useful to us.
If you feel you are stuck in a deadening pattern, you need to break through to a creative process. Shake things up! Change something basic. For example, if you're having the same fight over and over again with your teen, force yourself to smile, then change your part of the dialog. If you're just generally feeling stuck, try to change a habit. Turn off the TV in the evening; fill the time with phone calls to friends, a new hobby, or a book you've always meant to read.
Creativity flows from the choices we make and the actions we take. Choosing to change even simple things can set your creative talents free from your patterns.
For more exercises to jump-start your creativity, you can also download Actively Creative: A Guided Process.
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