5 Things To Practice If You Want To Be More Creative

5 Comments

1. When I first saw this article, I was immediately intrigued to creativity being in the title. In times like now where creativity is at an all time low due to the lack of motivation and willpower to go on, we the people could use some tips on how to generally be more creative, and bring that to the workplace as it is becoming more and more important skill to be creative to stick out from the bunch. I can see how reading fiction books can increase someone’s creativity because many fiction reads are based on fantasy realms and other dimensions that would not be feasible in the real world. It’s stories like these that can really jump start someone’s creativity as the content within them is usually very descriptive. In my opinion fiction books are more enjoyable because you can treat them as an escape from the world and the hardships that come with it. I agree with the article when it says “ Fiction is much more of an art.” Because it takes a lot of skill and prowess in the genre of fiction to create a story that had never existed before, versus a story being retold using facts. I also can see how experiencing life in as many ways possible can increase someone’s creativity because what that can mean is that someone is traveling or trying new things. I also thought the statement “Dramatically expand your perspective of the world.” Was a valid statement when it came to experiencing life in as many ways as possible because in doing this you are seeing things that might be otherworldly to you like the blue healing lagoons of Iceland or the sands and pyramids of Egypt. And moving on to the portion of the article talking about psychedelics, this can be considered a controversial topic among many due to the potential ramifications of using said substances. I have done some research into the topic and it appears that many people do these substances to increase their creative horizon or take them out of a bad time in their lives. Vsauce, a very credible intellectual YouTuber took a journey into Peru, one of the original sites where Ayahuasca was being distributed. He said the experience was quite humbling, but the readings that were taken from his brain waves before and after the psychedelic experience showed that many different areas of his brain had seen changes. Some of the major changes occurred in the portion of his brain associated with creative thinking. So overall I feel like if you want to go down that road I would educate yourself on the topic before delving into the world of psychedelic substances, but it could yield many benefits for you. Moving on to solving puzzles, I have first hand experience of this being used to try to stimulate extra brain activity. My grandfather suffered from severe dementia before he passed away, and in those months prior my family had signed him up for brain teaser programs online because doing puzzles and other things of the sort has proven to repair synapses within the brain. Overall, I feel like this article is trying to teach us to try to make contact with the creative side of our brain every so often. As the world of business in today’s time can be very stressful and it can have negative impacts on peoples creativity overtime and it needs to be met with an equal opposing force of creative outlets.

2. I find it interesting that 85% of the jobs that will exist haven’t been invented yet. If you ask me, that’s a pretty large number. This reminds me of a previous article about how Jobs that were common 100 years ago aren’t really around anymore. According to fast company, https://www.fastcompany.com/90236769/hate-your-cubicle-thank-medieval-monks office jobs didn’t come around until the 1900s. The article talks about how creativity will be a necessary skill for future workers. I want to also point out how useful this skill can be. When it comes to workers, you’ll want to have creative workers because they can solve problems. Problem solvers will be very valuable in the future. You’ll need creativity to problem solve so you can generate alternative solutions. ASQ https://asq.org/quality-resources/problem-solving talks about the skill of problem-solving. Just like developing creative skills, to become a problem solver you have to ask questions. Asking questions and thinking outside of the box require creativity and critical thinks. If workers have these skills they will be highly valuable.

3. As someone who grew up in the generation of social media being apart of our everyday lives, I can personally say it has a huge impact on ones personality. We look up to celebrities and social media influencers and think to ourselves, “Why can’t I look like that ?” and slowly but surely we begin to morph into them. This is a major reason as to why creativity is no longer a thing because we as humans do not allow our selves to express our true inner being. When it comes to job interviews and they see potential employers who all resemble the same individual they wont know how to distinguish the two. In jobs particularly in business your personality is how you attract your customers and collaborate with other potential business partners. So why not be different and stand out from the rest ? In the long run making your own decisions and being your self will get you far in life.

4. I was intrigued by this article because the article title is “5 Things to Practice to Be More Creative”, but as I read, I learned that the author, Winston Ibrahim, was a CEO, active investor, and entrepreneur, so he related the topic of creativity to the business world. I found the tips presented very helpful because as a business major, I also agree with the idea stated that “creativity is seen as much more than being gifted in the arts or having the capacity to daydream the next game-changing startup”. Being creative is a way of thinking intricately to solve problems, but I did not know everyone had the capability of acquiring it. Just like the author said, I too thought that a person can only be born with creativity, but it can be learned by practicing it, which was fascinating and made me want to try and engage those muscles in my brain more to learn to be more creative in my daily thought processes. A tip that caught my eye was about psychedelics and their influence on creative thinking. Ibrahim described this as controversial which I understand why because promoting drugs is not a smart idea, but I found some interesting studies on the effects of certain psychedelics. In a research done by Isabel WeiBner along with her fellows, they studied the effects of LSD and creativity and its potential to boost creative thought. They found that “psychedelic-induced symbolization was hypothesized to unveil unconscious material, facilitate problem confrontation and solving, supporting psychological growth and maturation”(Weibner). This means that the individual on the psychedelic has an advantage in solving problems because they were able to express themselves easier with a clearer mind and had more focus on thinking about the issue in detail. It is very interesting to see how science has come so far such as there exist studies on the positive effects of it on the creative thinking process, even though psychedelics have been overlooked in a negative notion in society. I was engaged when reading this article because I believe it is very important to have the capacity to think outside the box, as Ibrahim mentioned. This enables you to think of different types of outcomes whether it’s for your job, relationships, obstacles in life, and anything in general. The fact that it is also something that can be practiced and that we all can obtain is something we should all try to acclimate. The way he brought up how entrepreneurship uses logical and emotional thinking struck my curiosity because I never thought of it in a business way. Being able to use both simultaneously without one weighing out the other can be obtained by practicing our creative thinking processes and can be very beneficial to any future businessmen or women. I feel like my generation has not been exposed to thinking outside the box because we have all the answers at our fingertips because of Google. We are given the answer to any questions we have by just searching it instead of thinking to ourselves a solution or answer which is a big factor in why many of us lack this skill. It is important to me to learn this skill because I am not the greatest at it myself so I am going to begin implementing it in my daily thought process and asking myself questions about “why the world is the way it is” as Ibrahim explained is what a creative person would do.

   Works Cited https://labs.psych.ucsb.edu/schooler/jonathan/sites/labs.psych.ucsb.edu.schooler.jonathan/files/pubs/wiessner_2022_lsd_creativity.pdf

5. In this article titled “5 Things to Practice to Be More Creative”, I feel as though everyone must read it. From the beginning of time, we as a species have continuously evolved/progressed throughout the centuries due to people’s creativity. The definition of creativity is the use of imagination or original ideas, especially in the production of artistic work. I believe understanding and comprehending the term creativity is important because on planet Earth everything that was ever created has come from someone’s creativity. For example, Johannes Gutenberg used his creativity to create the printing press and Alexander Graham Bell’s creativity helped him create the telephone. I agree with the author’s thought that creativity is not something a person is born with, instead creativity formulate by practicing it. At first, I disagreed with the author, but as I can begin to think about it more, it made sense. For instance, creativity cannot stimulate on its own; the person must initiate and have the want to seek something they might be unsure of. I can agree with this wholeheartedly because when I was younger, I was not that creative, I was simple and straight to the point because I wasn’t curious enough to seek something I wasn’t sure about. Then as I soon got older, my mind became free, and I became more creative over time. I believe that the world would not have the ability to spin without creativity. For instance, if half of the people in the world are creative that would offer our humanity 3.8 billion unique ideas and thoughts that could potentially turn into an invention the world has been waiting for. Every individual on the planet is unique from each other, not only physically but mentally and internally. I think that is one of the best things about us as a species because everyone has something unique to offer the world. All in all, creativity is such an important part of life itself that we as humans should value it more and seek to utilize it as much as we can.