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Share what is inspiring your Monday.

Creativity is a muscle. When we work it out, it gets stronger and when we fail to exercise it, we get weaker. The act of creating takes sweat and effort. A series of studies done on some of the most creative “geniuses” in history has identified a few trends common in extremely creative people that innovate and create ideas to influence change in their fields. Here are eight exercises that can make us creatively stronger:

• Think Visibly. – Don’t just rest on language. Allow space, pictures, diagrams, and technology to enhance how we see communicate and articulate. Find ways to tell stories via pictures instead of words. Images will change how people relate to our art and will change the way stories are told.
• Don’t just talk, produce – We won’t always create masterpieces. However, masterpieces will never exist if we don’t create. Creativity takes reps, and lots of them. We always see the highlight reels of creative teams, but we don’t see the number of attempts, the failed ideas, the edited content, the stuff that never sees the light of day. Great creative elements and ideas are the result of lots of failed, dorky, bad, and poorly executed attempts to create something good.
• Create Connections- Some of our most creative ideas come from combining things that don’t naturally live together. Creating connections between opposites is a fantastic exercise for enhancing our creativity. Work to connect unconnected items in an effort to get creatively better.
• Change the Lens – Don’t be afraid to tear a problem or situation apart. Sometimes deconstructing a situation and rebuilding it can help us identify solutions. Changing perspectives can help us find solutions not always visible at first look. This process takes work and often takes some patience, but when done correctly will uncover ideas and results that can make lasting impacts.
• Suspend Reality – We live in a real world, but creativity thrives in imagination and possibility. When we’re able to suspend reality and cut off the voices that try to rationalize our creativity, we’ll find new creative roads to travel. Without reality, we see new possibilities.
• Dream in Metaphors – Metaphors are ways to articulate story in more accessible ways. People may not remember data, but they remember stories. When we share our ideas in metaphors, we learn to be more creative and more complete in creating our thought processes.
• Get Back Up – Failure provides the opportunity to try again. When we try again, we have a chance to be more audacious, more creative, and more gritty with how we create. Leveraging fear and failure makes us better than we could dream possible. Failing also allows us to ask questions and remove data that doesn’t work from the equation.
• Press Pause – Create and work hard…then press pause. Step away. Give creativity room to breathe. Then come back. The chance to get away from our creative process, idea, or project will allow us to come back and see it in a new light. It will give us the chance to identify areas or elements we may have missed. Pressing pause is the least attractive option because it forces us to beat deadlines and create margin. But, when it does, it makes us so much better.

Do you employ any of these exercises in your life? Are there any other exercises you might add to the list?

Photo Props:

Part of the pressure of being someone who is creative is understanding timing.

When is it time to share our new idea? When is it time to push for innovation? When is it time to impose new ideas, brands, concepts, and help create change? The sexy answer is all the time, but that’s not entirely possible.

Here are a few identifying factors to when timing is right to fight for change:

• When we understand that risk is involved and it starts with you. However, knowing you can create champions to help you carry the weight of that risk is a bonus.
• When there’s a problem that needs to be solved.
• When there’s an opportunity to be better or improve.
• When we can change the mind of people who will oppose, or prove them wrong.
• When we identify that in the next 3-5 years what we are doing today won’t work anymore.
• When momentum is slipping.
• When the status quo is making life boring.
• When complacency has set in and urgency has escaped.
• When resources aren’t available.
• When crises occurs.
• When expectations stop being met.
• When we copy more than we create.
• When we’re more focused on check lists than we are on art.
• When we have more habits than ideas.
• When we’re scared.

We all can contribute to this list based on our own specific experiences.
What would you add to this list?

Photo Props

With the pressure to create, we know when things are good – it’s an instinct.

As time progresses, we start to settle. With each passing day, the timelines, work loads, pressures, and opinions pose the risk of taking over our instincts. Excuses tempt us to settle for less than our best. With each passing day we risk the drift of complacency taking over and we start to settle.

When we settle, a couple of things happen:

• We lose a small piece of our DNA.
• We sacrifice greatness for good or good enough.
• We misstep on expectations.
• We devalue the end user.
• We lose focus.
• We risk momentum being lost.
• We waste opportunity.
• We cheat ourselves and our friends.

Don’t Settle.
It’s not worth it.
If you can’t be proud of it, dig in and fix it.

We have the honor of being chosen to create and we disrespect that honor when we don’t give our absolute best.

I am a proponent for “shipping” as described by Seth Godin, but you should not ship raw material. There has to be enough of YOU in your art that you can be proud of it and feel like what is shipped is a good representation of who you are. It’s part of the paradox that makes us crazy artists. When is enough, enough? When we refuse to settle.

Your art is worth it.
We need it.
Don’t Settle.

How do you avoid the trap of settling?

If we plan to create our best art, create community, create great experiences, or make connections, we have to be open.

Open to differences.
Open to people who don’t think like us.
Open to people who don’t look like us.
Open to people who don’t sound like us.
Open to a great day.
Open to beings wrong.
Open to another idea.
Open to correction.
Open to criticism.
Open to push back.
Open to setting up, breaking down, and trying something new.
Open to making adjustments if things aren’t working like we thought.
Open to a tough day.
Open to things that might scare us a little.
Open to changing things.
Open to walking in someone else’s shoes.
Open to looking at our church or service through the eyes of someone
else – someone who may never have been in our world before.
Open to grace.
Open to mercy.
Open to whatever happens.

Being open allows us to experience, welcome, love, try, change, and adjust.

Being open provides an atmosphere where grace excels, status quo starves,
and creativity thrives.

Being closed is the equivalent to maxing out. If we stay closed, we will soon be closed for good.

How do you find ways to stay open?