Thrive With Creativity; Bruce Langford

You can thrive with creativity, and having more aspects of creativity in your life will help you prosper in surprising ways. When you remember the times in your life when everything was flowing, do you feel like creativity was an active part of your life? As a musician, some of the happiest times of my life were when I was creating and performing music.

I’m taking part in a ‘learn to paint’ program this week, and it has really helped me feel connected to a deeper part of myself. The course is with Jed Dorsey of TheLandscapeWorkshop.com. Jed is not an affiliate, I just wanted to tell you about this excellent free course he’s offered.

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Meditation can help you become more creative. I recently interviewed Jackson Kerchis – he’s passionate about helping people learn meditation and stick to it. The episode is called, How To Stick To Meditation; Jackson Kerchis. Jackson also wrote an excellent book on the topic with the same name, How To Stick To Meditation.

I can say from experience that meditation has helped me feel more creative and I have definitely benefited from the increased creativity.There are five benefit to creativity I’d like to talk about today:

1/ Boost Happiness

As a kid, I would spend hours playing the piano. I played from sheet music and made songs up. When I thought the song was ready for a performance, I’d play it for my dad, who was always eager to hear me play. He gave me great positive feedback as a result of my creativity.

The definition of creativity varies, but most experts agree it has to do with the ability to come up with new ideas, new connections between ideas, and novel solutions to problems.

You might be thinking, I’m not a musician, a dancer, or a poet. Experts say creativity lives within all of us, it’s just a matter of allowing it to come forward.

In the book called, “The Creativity Cure”, author Dr. Carrie Barron says, “It really has to do with open-mindedness.” She says creativity applies to everything from making a meal to generating a business plan.

It doesn’t matter what creativity looks like in your life. It could be cooking, skiing, singing, sketching or something else. Just remember that creativity will feed your soul and just help you feel happy.

2/ Creativity For Problem-Solving

Creativity is a skill that can be learned. You don't need to be an artist or musician to be creative, you can use your creativity everyday with things like cooking, cleaning, gardening, or organizing.

Creativity can help with problem solving but it’s good to take step by step action.

Use Osborn’s Creative Problem Solving technique Brainstorming in between the steps to get the biggest benefit. Here are the 7 steps:

Clarify and identify the problem – Pretend that the problem is not that important
Research the problem
Formulate creative challenges
Generate ideas
Combine and evaluate the ideas
Draw up an action plan
Do it! (implement the ideas)

I encourage you to combine your creativity with problem-solving to reach a win-win result.

3/ Creativity for Healthy Living

Does it make sense to you that creative people live longer? I think creative people are happier, and I believe it makes sense that happier people live longer.

I know in my case, I’m a lot happier when I’m doing creative activities compared to when I’m spending my time on what I would consider non-creative activities.

The topic of creativity has come up a lot in my interviews on Mindfulness Mode, and just as an observation, I’ve noticed that health and creativity seem to be aligned.

There are studies about this topic and a study from 2012 researched veteran men. The researchers, Turiano, Spiro and Mroczek, followed 1,349 veterans for over 10 years . They looked at their intellect and creativity. They rated their creativity based on these five words: creative, imaginative, artistic, innovative, and uncreative.

The researchers identified creativity with the following phrase; “a facet of openness”. They concluded that creativity was related to a reduced risk of mortality. Specifically, each standard deviation increase in creativity was associated with a 12 percent decrease in mortality risk over the 18-year follow-up period.

The study’s authors concluded, “creativity predicted mortality risk above and beyond other details like age, education, smoking, and health status.” (p.666)

I found the study interesting. Maybe you’ve read some books or read some studies on this topic. If you have, I’d love to hear from you. Send me a message bruce@mindfulnessmode.com
Turiano, N. A., Spiro III, A., & Mroczek, D. K. (2012). Openness to experience and mortality in men: Analysis of traits and facets. Journal of Aging and Health, 25, 654-672

4/ Healthier Relationships Result From Being Creative

Creative people have better relationships for several reasons. For one, they are often more motivated compared to less creative people. Creative people tend to be more relaxed and easy-going and that quality means they are drawn to people looking for a comfortable, relaxed, non-threatening relationship

Optimists tend to be creative. Being positive and up-beat is something that you see in creative people a lot. This up-beat nature is one of the reasons you’ll often notice these people have a lot of friends and an interesting life.

Noticing emotions and being able to express those emotions is another quality common in creative people. People with this quality will be more sensitive to your feelings and needs than a person who is not very creative.

People looking to make friends with others are usually looking for some of the traits we’ve talked about.

5/ Creative People Are More Successful

Look around you. Think of the people you know. Do the more creative people seem to be more successful in your circles? Well, in my opinion, creative people tend to be more passionate about their work and I think that leads to more discoveries, more advancement, and more great relationships at work.

Creative ppl tend to ask the question ‘What if” frequently, allowing their mind to explore possibilities. From what I’ve read, I believe Nicola Tesla asked these kinds of questions and as a result became a well-known inventor. The radio, remote control and general wireless communication are credited to tesla.

Creativity reminds me of a quote by Albert Einstein. He’s known for saying, “Creativity is seeing what others see and thinking what no one else ever thought.”

It’s important for adults to continue to be creative. If we become too left brain dependent we could forget about the thrill we get from life when we allow our creativity to play an active role.

A few months ago I interviewed Keda Edwards Pierre in Toronto at the Collision Conference. Her episode is called True II Soul. As soon as I met her, I could tell that she was overflowing with creativity. She uses some of her personal expeiences to help others deal with trauma. She had a 27-year career with the Toronto Police Service and she sees herself as a renaissance woman, living her mission of personal and professional lifelong healing and development. You might want to have a listen to her episode.

A really great book related to creativity is the book called, Squircle – that word came from combining the word Circle, which represents creativity or right brain thinking, and the word Square, which represents left brain thinking. The author of this book is Francis Cholle, and I interviewed him in February of this year. I highly recommend his book and the interview as well. It’s called, A New Way To Think For A New World, by Francis Cholle .

Here are some things Francis recommends in his book to help develop your creative side. He says, change your routine in the morning, explore new foods for breakfast or other meals. Search for a new route to travel to work or school. Listen to different radio shows, podcasts, or audio books.

He also suggests you talk to other creative friends and ask them what they do to spark and express their creativity. In short, invite change and new ideas into your life.

One of the things I’ve concluded from what I’ve read and the people I’ve interviewed is that people who have creative personalities tend to have a lot of perseverance and they actually look for things in their life that will create interest and make their lives more fun. Individuals with these traits are more satisfied with their lives than less creative people.

It’s important to remember that people are the most creative when they’re in a good mood, possibly because they don’t fixate on individual pieces of information and they can think more broadly and more positively. You’ve seen others thrive with creativity, now it’s your turn. Chose a specific way you can increase creativity in your life. It could be dance, woodworking, drawing, music, or painting like I mentioned at the top of the show. Take action. Get ready to thrive in a brand new way!

Suggested Resources

Book: The Creativity Cure: How To Build Happiness With Your Own Two Hands by Carrie Barron
Book: Your Creative Brain: Seven Steps to Maximize Imagination, Productivity, and Innovation in Your Life by Dr. Shelley Carson
Book: Squircle
App: Insight Timer

Related Episodes

A New Way To Think For A New World - Francis Cholle

How To Stick To Meditation; Jackson Kerchis

True II Soul - Keda Edwards Pierre