As children, our parents and teachers encouraged us to be creative. Boxes became spaceships, sticks became swords or magic wands, and dolls became imaginary friends. As we grew older, however, many of us gave up on this creativity in exchange for being more practical skills.
However, creativity has an important role in everyone’s life. Indeed, if you stifle your creativity, you may not be able to realise your full potential. Creative expression is also instrumental to your professional success. Why and how, you may ask? Here are just a few reasons:
It Promotes Self-Awareness
Self-awareness is critical if you want to succeed in your career. Not only can it awaken your ambitions, but it can also help you recognise talents. In turn, you can better use these talents to accomplish your goals and help others succeed as well. Self-awareness also helps with self-expression. When you can clearly communicate your thoughts, you can prevent miscommunication and at the same time cultivate better relationships.
It Keeps You in Touch with Your Inner Self
In relation to self-awareness, creative expression also puts you in touch with your inner self. It also strengthens your intuition. This simply means that you can easily make the right decisions, respond to negative situations in positive ways, and feel more confident about your life choices. Keeping in touch with your inner self also helps you create more authentic and fulfilling work.
It Boosts Your Self-Esteem
Creative expression can help boost your self-esteem. Indeed, when you create something, no matter how simple, there’s a sense of personal satisfaction and achievement. These feelings can help boost your self-esteem which in turn boosts your confidence in your own ideas and skills. You will also be better at communicating with your colleagues and clients, not to mention be more productive in general.
Self-confidence also makes you more comfortable when it comes to moving out of your comfort zone. It makes you more likely to take on challenging tasks and pushes you to aim for bigger goals. When it comes to your professional life, this simply means that your managers will learn to trust you with larger projects. Finally, the confidence boost that creativity brings can lead you to motivate and inspire others.
It Helps You Solve Problems
There will come a time when you will be faced with a seemingly complex problem that you just cannot solve. If you unleash your creativity, however, and learn how to express your ideas, it can actually help you overcome obstacles. Indeed, creative expression helps facilitate critical thinking. This helps you learn resourcefulness, coming up with creative and unique solutions to the problems you encounter at work.
It Stimulates Your Brain
In relation to the previous point, creative expression can also help stimulate your brain. The part of the brain that is linked to creativity is separate from the part of the brain that you use for everyday tasks. As such, by regularly engaging in creative activities, you also regularly stimulate your whole brain as opposed to just one part of it. By giving your whole brain an exercise, so to speak, you can eventually improve cognitive function.
It Gives You a New Perspective
Creativity gives you a fresh set of eyes so you can gain a new perspective so you can see the world in a whole new light. This can lead to a new appreciation of every facet in your life, including your relationships and your career. Creativity can also stir your courage. It can push you to let go of bad habits and beliefs as you approach things more fearlessly yet still reasonably.
It Can Relieve Stress
Work-related stress is a big contributor to decreased productivity. It is also associated with fatigue and various health conditions such as insomnia, anxiety, and even heart disease. This is why taking the occasional vacation is so important for everyone. It allows us to rest and to rejuvenate.
Expressing your creativity is another form of stress relief and what’s great is that you can express your creativity in so many ways. It could be something as simple as finishing a few pages in your scrap book or experimenting on a new recipe. Many other hobbies, such as creative writing, music, dancing or photography, can also help you indulge your creative side. When your mind enters that state of ‘flow’, where you’re focusing solely on what you’re doing in the moment, it’s easy to forget your worries.
It’s easy to dismiss creative expression as something frivolous when you’re so focused on your quest for professional success. However, as outlined above, allowing yourself to express creativity is essential in your career.
Let go of the notion that only artists are creative. Everyone has a creative streak and people merely differ in their expression. In the end, what matters most is that you don’t give up your creative pursuits.
What do you think?
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