Creativity is an important part of life and of wellness. Creativity is how we’re able to experience beautiful art, moving music, incredible food, and inspiring ideas. When we’re creative, we’re interacting with the world and others in a way that’s meaningful. When there’s little creativity in our lives, we can often feel stifled or stuck.

There are a lot of reasons there may not be a lot of creativity in your life. It could be that creativity was never really valued in your life, or maybe somewhere along the way your creativity was interpreted as not following the rules, or out there, or too much. This can sometimes happen in schools, especially traditional school environments, where creative kids are sometimes labeled as troublemakers, or they have difficulty staying on track.

It’s also possible there’s not a lot of creativity in your life because you don’t believe you’re able to be creative. I often hear clients, students, friends say “I’m just not creative” or “I’m not a creative person” as if creativity is something you either have or you don’t. This just isn’t how creativity works though. Creativity is absolutely something that can be learned and taught, and every person is capable of becoming creative. You also don’t need to have artistic talent to be creative. You may not be the next great artist of our time, or have a career as a popular singer, but this doesn’t mean you can’t have a creative mind.

(12) How To Have Better Creative Thinking – YouTube

So how can you become a more creative person? Or maybe you’re wondering how you could teach someone in your life to be more creative. Well, if you go on YouTube, there’s about one hundred videos on ways to be more creative – I’ve seen quite a few of them and what really stood out to me is three things: curiosity, willingness to take healthy risks, and play.

When people are curious, they tend to be more creative. Why might you think this is? First, they ask a lot of questions. They are open to possibilities and the possibility that there are unlimited number of possibilities. They not only want to know the why, but the how, too. They are curious about the world, curious about others, and curious about themselves. They approach life with openness and invitation.

(12) 10 Hacks to being Creative – YouTube

This curiosity often leads to the willingness to take healthy risks. Creative people are open to trying new things, even when those things may not work out, may not turn out the way they wanted, or could end up being disappointed. Maybe this means you try a new recipe you’ve been wanting to mess around with, and you end up tossing it all away and eating a frozen pizza. It happens the most creative of us because sometimes a brilliant idea doesn’t taste as good in practice.

Regardless of the outcome, creativity people are willing to invite play into their lives. Play and playfulness is something that so many people lose touch of the older they get, and yet it’s so important. Play is freeing, it’s imaginative, and it’s fun. With play, there’s opportunities to allow your imagination to run wild and to laugh at yourself. Creative people find opportunities to bring play into their lives. Play also inspires. Allowing yourself to play can inspire ideas and being around people who play and are inspiring also leads to more creative thinking.

(12) Give yourself permission to be creative | Ethan Hawke – YouTube

If you’re thinking, well great I’m not any of those things, I encourage you to reflect on the ways you are curious, the ways you are willing to take risks, and how you’re already bringing play into your life. These are three things you are capable of doing more of, especially when you start to invite the opportunities in. Ultimately, these are just some of ways to bring more creativity into your life, but there’s also a lot more ideas and I’ve included some of them throughout this entry.

I’ve included a few videos throughout the blog that give a few different perspectives on creativity and ways to spark creativity in your life. I encourage you watch one of them (or all) and try to find ways to bring creativity into your life. Maybe this is something you want to do on your own, or maybe there’s other people you’d like to teach how to be more creative, too.

For now, I invite you to find ways to be curious, take a healthy risk, and bring play into your life.

Thanks for reading,

Bri