What is creating? I’m not creative!

Sure you are! We’re all creators. Let’s spend a few minutes really understanding what creating and being a creator is really all about.

There are a number of definitions for the verb “create”. Only one of them is probably the first definition we focus on – the artistic, inventive definition like creating a song, a work of art, the light bulb, the universe. After all, isn’t our god, regardless of religious practice, the great creator?

Why don’t we bring to mind the most usual definition of creating? To bring into being, to form out of nothing, to cause to exist, to give rise to or produce. Have you ever built a fire? If so, you created. Do you dress yourself each day before you leave home? If so, the outfit you

We're always creating!

choose, the image it sends, the style of dress you have, you’ve created. We all create many times a day, every day – unless we’re comatose or so depressed we can’t even move out of bed. Even when we’re sleeping we’re creating. We’re creating dreams. You are already a “createer”. You just didn’t know it.

For most of my adult life, I didn’t believe I was creative. I was using the tried and true definition of “artistic”, “inventive”. And then, one day, I took a values assessment to see what it said about the values that are important to me. This is an assessment by a group called VIA – Values in Action. You can find a link to it by scrolling down the “Free Stuff” page on our companion blog “Exploring Frustration”. Here’s a link to the VIA home page. What I learned from my assessment results was that the value of “Creativity” was number 4 on my list of top values! Go figure … Values are really really important. They’re how we live our lives. They’re what are essential to our inner self. They are at the heart of all choices. The more we’re living a life full of our top values, the more satisfied we are. So what was going on here?

VIA describes the value of “Creativity” thusly: thinking of new ways of doing things is a critical part of who you are. You are never content with doing something the conventional way if a better way is possible. Wow, now that is me. I am creative. I create all the time. I remember when I was just a kid my mother used to always say, “There are three ways of doing things. The right way, the wrong way, and Ron’s way.” I was creating even as a small child! Too cool! I’m a createer and I didn’t even know it!

So what’s going on here. I believe the answer is quite simple, yet profound. We are taught in our left brain, western culture, that life moves from something to something else. We are taught to rearrange and respond. We are taught to tolerate and make do or make the best. We are not taught, or at least not taught very well, to love, to be, to explore. “To do” lists are what’s important, not “to want” lists. And even if we’re given the blessings of creating “to want” lists, how frequent the list is filled with “to not wanting” items. To “not want” pain or failure rather than “to want” to risk and learn from any pain or failure.

If you’ve read my bio, you know that I started and built a company from nothing to a public offering. I know now that I “created” that company. This was in my “to do” list days and my “to do” list for the company was “to not fail”. What I came to realize is that my “to want” list for the company was to have the wonderful challenge and learning that came with the experience. And I’m not alone. I coach a fair number of founder/CEOs and most will say that they do what they do for the love of the involvement in their business. I was a CEO of a software technology company. Did I want to run chain of bicycle shops? No, although I’ve coached an entrepreneur that does and he never wanted to run a technology company. We love the company and what the company does, and that’s what drives our creating.

We will be exploring the different stages of the creative process in subsequent posts. The framework for “Getting Results!” is a creative framework. Know that this framework for creating isn’t new-agey, therapy, psychology, a religion, a science or in itself designed to fix you, heal you, satisfy you. Rather it’s a form, not a formula. It’s a way of being conscious of what you’re doing day in and day out in a way that brings your “to want” list of results into being.

And one thing else I’ll share somewhat prematurely, and, perhaps, somewhat contradictory to the “artistic”, “inventive” definition of creating. It’s the same form that artists and inventors use!

Stay tuned …

Ron