Fostering Creativity

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Fostering creativity by protecting the process from external influences is imperative to helping you realize your dreams.

Creativity is one of the most exciting and rewarding experiences and something that every human being is born with the ability to do. When we create, we are in our prime element, yet so often our creative process is sabotaged by our own lack of self discipline. This article explains how fostering creativity can help you to achieve your goals by taking your idea right through to completion.

The precursor to creativity is ideas. Ideas come during a flash of inspiration. Inspiration happens when we realize and believe, even for the briefest of moments, that something is possible. The time it takes to move from Inspiration to Idea to the start of Creativity can be instantaneous i.e. when applying the creativity to the arts, but most often, when pertaining to our lives, the idea needs to go through an incubation period before the Creativity can commence.  The concept of the incubation period is foreign to most people, but it is the key to fostering creativity.

The incubation period refers to the time immediately after your new idea comes to mind and before you tell the world about it, creating a space where you can purposefully let the initial excitement of the idea pass, allowing you to objectively consider the credibility of your new idea while in a peaceful and balanced state of mind, privately reflecting and allowing yourself to sound-out the merits of it and modifying and developing the original idea to suit the reality of your life, situation and circumstances.

The incubation period enables you to fully connect, understand and appreciate the reality of what your idea involves before sharing your idea with anyone. The incubation period enables you to make an intelligent decision of whether you proceed to the creation stage of your idea, or make a conscious decision to not pursue it based on whatever viable reasons you uncovered. Remember, it is arguably impossible for a human being to follow through on every single idea they have – the incubation period is your opportunity to screen your ideas and be able to choose which ones you wish to see through to completion. If you decide not to pursue an idea, but believe it has potential and credibility, you could consider selling your idea to someone who is better positioned to act on it.

If you do make the decision to see your idea through to completion, the final stage of the incubation period is to develop and research your refined idea further, identifying perceived obstacles and challenges and determining a path to overcome them, then deciding on a general strategy to implement your great idea, including a plan on how to spread awareness and raise support for your project.

The Inspiration – Idea – Creativity flow is a relatively simple process – one that involves both hemispheres of your brain – the right for creativity and resourcefulness and the left for linear thought, research and strategy, but for most people the entire process ends too soon after the first flash of inspiration because the excitement is so overwhelming that they quickly tell whomever will listen before they have even taken the time to develop and enhance their idea, essentially wrenching the idea from its womb prematurely and causing an untimely fate.  Instead of communicating a polished and intelligent, well thought out idea, they communicate the raw, undeveloped and unthought out original idea which is riddled with flaws and incongruities. An awful first impression and one that fails to convey the advantages and potential of the idea, and ultimately fails to gain any support or encouragement.  With such an initial poor feedback / reaction from friends, family or colleagues, limiting and negative thoughts quickly arise and the idea, with so much potential, fades to obscurity, leaving the dreamer disheartened about their experience.

People who are labeled “dreamers” are in this cycle. They are forever inspired and abound with new ideas, always excited and desperate to tell the first person about their latest and greatest idea but also in the trap of exposing their idea to the world before its due time, before their idea has passed through the incubation period.

As mentioned above, self discipline is essential for fostering creativity. Creativity is the process of acting on an idea, so the idea needs to develop and take shape before the creative process should begin. It takes a lot of self discipline to restrain the urge to share new and wonderful ideas immediately with others instead of keeping the idea private and to ourselves as needed during the incubation period. The incubation period can last from half an hour to several years, depending on the scope and complexity of the idea. To tell anyone about your idea before the incubation period is finished is to risk the very success of your idea and dreams. Only once you have a tangible, well-thought-out plan for your idea, then tell the world, but until then, keep your lips sealed!

If you are a natural dreamer, consider yourself blessed. Your mind is already conditioned with an incredible wealth of resources and creativity – you just need to focus on being self disciplined and fostering creativity. If you are not a natural dreamer, and your inspiration and creativity has been severely muted by the system, then you need to focus on reconditioning your mind and retapping in to your natural born gifts of creativity (to be covered in a later article), but as long as you have the desire to be creative, then your creative talents will develop naturally in the right environment.

Good luck self disciplined dreamers!

“The intuitive mind is a sacred gift and the rational mind is a faithful servant. We have created a society that honors the servant and has forgotten the gift” (Albert Einstein)

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