What does it mean to be creative?
Creativity, in its proper definition, means "the use of the imagination or original ideas, especially in the production of an artistic work."
While the phrase "artistic work" is attached to the definition, it's only because there's usually more emphasis on the word when being used to describe artists and their work.
What I want to point out here are the synonyms for "creativity" - words like "inventiveness," "imagination," "innovation," "originality," "individuality," "expressiveness," "inspiration," and "resourcefulness."
These words represent more than art. They all mean you're being creative.
Being creative is using yourself, along with your best capabilities, to produce something awesome. This could be making a customer feel appreciated and taken care of when you've sold them something, going the extra mile to prepare someone's food, or even doing something outside of your comfort zone in order to expand your experiences.
Being creative is not some hard skill you have to secretly tap into and discover. It's a skill that everyone has and it's important not to skew its truth.
How am I creative?
While filmmaking in itself can be seen as creative, it doesn't always feel like that. Before I started working on real projects with producers, directors, and screenwriters, it was hard for me to see filmmaking as serious. I saw it as a profession that not a lot of people can master and that you had to be insanely creative to succeed in.
If I didn't have any new or innovative ideas to bring to the table, what was my creativity good for?
This question was at the forefront of my mind at the beginning of my college career, and I'm so glad it's changed. Since excelling in my major and classes, I've learned that my creativity, weird and unfamiliar in itself, is just as much "art" and "creativity" as anyone's else.
Making YouTube videos that contain me dancing, being myself. making people laugh, and doing crazy things is art. I know that sounds weird. It took me a long time of realization to actually say that and acknowledge but it's the truth. It's time I start accepting myself and what makes me happy.
The last thing I should be doing is comparing my creativity to others.
Once I learned to stop comparing my work and what everyone else was doing to me and my projects, things changed. Being creative requires you to be fully you and use what you know you're good at to succeed. It's not necessarily about winning a race (unless you being creative involves sports), but more about you having fun.
It's hard for me to creative when it feels like all work and no play. Maybe the career you're in right now doesn't feel like it's allowing you to be creative, so find something that will! A lot of times we think ONLY our career is the way to do things we love and find our passions. But it's not!
You have the power to unleash your best potential!
Your creativity awaits! It's waiting for you to make the move. Opportunities can come from your job, hobbies, family, and friends. There are so many ways you can get out into the world and be creative.
Don't put your creativity in a box. Creativity is not secluded to the norms of society, not locked in for safekeeping, not depressed and lonely. Your creativity starts with you. I can't stress that enough.
Maybe you already knew most of this stuff and maybe not. Either way, I hope you take away the importance of it. Being creative is not some fancy word only artists get to use and expand upon, it's about you being able to "perceive the world in new ways, to find hidden patterns, to make connections between seemingly unrelated phenomena, and to generate solutions."
Creativity is about taking yourself, your actions, your wants, what you love, and turning it into something amazing and unique, even if it's not something new that's never been invented before. That's not the point. As long as you're creating something that you love doing and see in value in, that's all that matters.
