Last Updated on 9 May 2023
Sometimes we confuse artistic ability with creativity.
The thinking, if you can’t paint or draw, you’re not creative. But this isn’t true.
Artistic abilityincludes skills and talent to create works of art: painting, drawing, sculpting, musical composition, etc.
Creativity abilityis the skill and talent to use our imagination to create and solve.
A creative artist is probably a better artist. But you don’t have to be an artist to be creative.
We are creative all the time and don’t think about it.
- Mom or Dad ad-lib lunch for the kids, pulling together something creative and yummy when “no ingredients” were in the fridge.
- The radio announces slow traffic on our route home, and we figure out a route taking the back roads home.
- Your company’s Christmas Party invitation had a typo, and you added the missing punctuation with a marker – and no one knew the difference.
These examples required imagination and experience to solve a problem or challenge creatively.
We’ve got to stop selling ourselves short. We artificially hold ourselves back by giving up on imaginative thinking because we’re not portrait artists.
It is remarkable that when you let yourself be creative – the more you think and act creatively – the more creative you become. Like exercising muscles, the more you use them, the stronger they become.
Starting now, just be more creative! Flip that switch in your mind about how you think about your creativity.
Here are two of my favorite books about being creative and solving problems.
 and Find Your Great Ideas by Jordan Ayan |  The Handbook of New Ideas for Business by James Higgins |
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