Found this at http://ragamuffinsoul.com. I actually took a "how-to-blog" seminar by the author (Carlos Whitaker) last summer at Saddleback's worship conference. Gave me a lot to think about. Took me 9 months to get it all together and start blogging. This article is on creativity, one of my favorite subjects.
9 Attitudes of Highly Creative People.
Published May 9th, 2007 in .
1. Curiosity
I’ve written previously on the topic of curiosity because I’m convinced that it is an essential skill to build as a blogger. Learning to ask ‘why’, ‘what if’ and ‘I wonder…’ are great questions t build into your life if you want to be a more creative person.
2. Seeing Problems as Interesting and Acceptable
ChallengeOne of the problems of the Western mindset is that we often see problems or obstacles in life as unacceptable parts of life. We avoid pain or suppress it when it comes and in doing so don’t often see and feel symptoms that are there to tell us something important. Creative people see problems as a natural and normal part of life - in fact they often have a fascination with problems and are drawn to them.
3. Confronting Challenge
Many of the most creative ideas through out history have come from people facing a challenge or crisis and rather than running from it asking ‘how can I overcome this’?
4. Constructive Discontent
Creative people often have an acute awareness of what’s wrong with the world around them - however they are constructive about this awareness and won’t allow themselves to get bogged down in grumbling about it - they take their discontent and let it be a motivation to doing something constructive.
5. Optimism
OptimismCreative people generally have a deeply held belief that most (if not all) problems can be solved. No challenge is too big to be overcome and no problem cannot be solved (this doesn’t mean they’re always happy or never depressed - but they don’t generally get stumped by a challenge).
6. Suspending Judgment
The ability to hold off on judging or critiquing an idea is important in the process of creativity. Often great ideas start as crazy ones - if critique is applied too early the idea will be killed and never developed into something useful and useable. (note - this doesn’t mean there is never a time for critique or judgement in the creative process - it’s actually key - but there is a time and place for it).
7. Seeing Hurdles as leading to improvements and solutions
HurdlesThis relates to some of the above - but by ‘hurdles’ I mean problems and mistakes in the creative process itself. Sometimes it’s on the journey of developing an idea that the real magic happens and it’s often out of the little problems or mistakes that the idea is actually improved.
8. Perseverance
Creative people who actually see their ideas come to fruition have the ability to stick with their ideas and see them through - even when the going gets tough. This is what sets apart the great from the good in this whole sphere. Stick-ability is key.
9. Flexible Imagination
FlexibleI love watching a truly creative person at work when they’re ‘on fire’. They have this amazing ability to see a problem or challenge and it’s many potential solutions simultaneously and they have an intuitive knack at being able to bring previously disconnected ideas together in flashes of brilliance that seem so simple - yet which are so impossible to dream up for the average person.
Good stuff. Sorry for all the practical info lately.
Just what’s in my head.
Los
