3 ways to use creativity to be creative!

Say you've chosen a creative project, and moved along the path far enough to feel you're starting to get somewhere. Most of the time, an obstacle will arise. A time obstacle, a hitch in your plans, negative feedback from someone who really counts... something will come up.

Well, good news! There is an answer: more creativity. Each obstacle can be examined and framed as a creative challenge.  Not enough time? The creative challenge can be, "How can I make time for my project without sacrificing other things that are important?" If you think outside your normal patterns, there may be ways to shift your creativity time around to fit it in, or schedule a vacation break where you can focus 100% on your idea.

Here are three ways to use creativity to overcome obstacles:

• Redefine the obstacle as a creative challenge.  This is step one of the creative process: identification. How could you reframe "My mentor thinks this is a terrible idea!" as a creative challenge? Use your imagination here, just as you did when you first had your idea.

• Tap into your original motivation.  Your motivation--the reason you feel this is important--has carried you this far.  Go back to that place and sit with it until it fills you up again.  The creative energy you get from doing this should help you to restart your creative engines and find ways to get around barriers.

• Use your creativity to reshape your idea.  It's your motivation that matters, not the details of your idea.  If there's something about it that doesn't work, you can use that information to make it better!  J.K. Rowling has written about the number of characters she worked hard on who never made it into her books.  The ability to change your idea when you need to is a hallmark of successful creators.

Whatever you do, don't just give up because something's in the way.  The world of your creative imagination is rich and vast.  There is plenty of room to get around the obstacles.

Creativity begins and ends with reality

Maybe the saddest mistake about creativity is that it is some kind of lala land with no realtionship to reality.  The image of the creator as a lost child is a disservice to the actual process and meaning of creativity.

For example, legendary creator Leonardo da Vinci was a genius at observation.  When he went out to the country and sat by a burbling stream, he spent his time cataloging the different shapes water made when it flowed around rocks, and used that information to transform his era's understanding of everything from how to build a lumber mill to how blood flows through the human body.  When da Vinci looked, he really saw what he was looking at.  Most of us don't do that--everything we see is filtered through a set of assumptions and habits that blind us to opportunities to discover and create. 

Creative people (those who actually succeed in creating things) are not just dreamers; they are wilfull and persistent.  They see possibilities that are overlooked by other people, and they sacrifice to bring their ideas to life in the real world.  Maybe it's that sacrifice that leads those around them to scorn them as dreamers.  I think that's sad--being willing to sacrifice for a vision is heroic, not foolish.