How to Understand and Leverage Your Creativity
The Creativity Advantage Serialisation, Episode 2
Imagine walking into a room with nothing but a chair, a teacup, and a broken clock. Some people would see clutter. A creative person might see the start of a sculpture, a story, or even a time-traveling device powered by imagination.
Creativity isn’t confined to the arts or some elite class of thinkers. It’s a way of perceiving and engaging with the world, a mindset that sees not just what is, but what could be.
Creativity as a Process
Creativity is often mistaken for talent or inspiration. But real creativity is not some mysterious lightning strike. It’s a process, a blend of curiosity, imagination, experimentation, failure, and persistence.
It begins when you notice something, an itch of possibility, and ask, “What if?”
It continues when you start fiddling, reimagining, combining, and shaping ideas.
It culminates when something new emerges, not necessarily perfect, but different. Something that didn’t exist before.
Think of creativity as cognitive alchemy. It turns the lead of ordinary thoughts into the gold of new possibilities.
How do we do this? By making unexpected connections. By taking two seemingly unrelated ideas and wondering how they might fit together. By noticing patterns, asking questions, and giving ourselves permission to explore without needing immediate answers.
Creativity often begins with curiosity, but it takes shape through playful experimentation, trying things out, reshaping them, discarding what doesn’t work, and refining what does.
It’s a messy, iterative process, but one that rewards the brave and the persistent.
The Myths That Hold Us Back
Before we go further, let’s address a few myths:
“I’m not creative.” This is the big one. It’s the story we tell ourselves when we’ve gone too long without flexing our imaginative muscles.
But creativity isn’t reserved for artists, poets, or musicians. It’s for problem-solvers, tinkerers, question-askers. Entrepreneurs, scientists, teachers, parents, even accountants, yes, accountants can be wildly creative.
If you’ve ever found a workaround, spotted a shortcut, reworded an email to make it land better, or solved a tricky issue on the fly, congratulations, you’ve already been creative.
The trouble is, most people don’t recognise those moments as creativity. They think it only counts if it’s on a canvas or stage. But creativity shows up wherever you make something better, clearer, smoother, or more joyful than it was before.“Creativity is born, not made.” Nonsense. The latest neuroscience tells us creativity is learnable.
It’s a skill you can strengthen through practice, much like a muscle. Your brain is constantly reshaping itself based on what you do and how you think, a phenomenon known as neuroplasticity. When you engage in creative thinking, experiment with new ideas, or explore unfamiliar concepts, you're literally forging new neural pathways.
The more you practice being creative, the easier and more natural it becomes. Like lifting weights builds physical strength, creative effort builds cognitive flexibility. The trick is to treat it like training: consistent, curious, and willing to stretch beyond what feels familiar.“Creativity requires chaos.” There’s a romantic idea that creativity needs madness or disarray - the tortured artist flinging paint at the wall, or the genius scribbling furiously in a cluttered attic.
But some of the most creative people are deeply structured in their methods. Writers like Haruki Murakami follow strict daily routines. Filmmakers like Christopher Nolan storyboard every frame before a single shot is filmed.
Chaos might spark ideas, sure, but it’s discipline that turns those sparks into a sustained flame. Creativity thrives not in total disorder, but in the dance between openness and structure. Give it a wide field to roam, but also a fence to keep it focused. A chaotic mind might stumble upon a breakthrough, but a disciplined one knows how to refine it into something real.