Creativity big ideas: eight principles to unlock artist mode

Big ideas are the large (big-picture), abstract principles and assumptions about an idea or project. They are complex, many-layered “umbrella” statements. Big ideas try to encompass the essence of a concept. They outline the major categories within the bigger idea.

Creativity big ideas are messy, subjective, open-ended, expansive, thought-provoking. The are designed to be a framework for an idea, an aspirational guide to exploring within that topic.

Creativity is everything. Everyone is creative, and all work is creative work.

Creativity is the power to make things. We all have that ability and we do so all the time. You figure out how to solve a problem. You formulate how to tell the story of something that happened to you. Your living space and arrangements are figured out. You navigate various interactions with many people every day.

Jobs, careers, and gigs

Every kind of paid work requires creative thinking. Even in the most mundane of jobs, with absolutely zero agency, a worker gets creative in how to pass the time and get through the long boring shifts. The very survival of life is a skill that involves innovative thinking.  

Hobbies and passions

Not everything we are passionate about results in a career or compensation of any kind.  

In fact, not being paid or evaluated to do things can free us up to enjoy and innovate. You probably have at least one thing in your life that you love doing but would probably stop enjoying if you had to do it for paid work. Because then you would have to follow rules, customs, and procedures. You would have to answer to another authority, such as  a boss or paying client.

Relationships

Relationships work best when they find and develop the common ground between or among the people involved in the relationship. The more ways we can relate to someone, the more we will think about them and include them in our thoughts and different parts of our lives.

This is also how creative energy works. So, one measure of creativity becomes how many connections we can make between our potential ideas and the real world results of those ideas in action.

“Creativity is utterly natural in us and doesn’t have to be manufactured. Each of us is empowered with a creative spirit.”

Alexandra Stoddard, Daring to be yourself (1990)

Anything can be inspiring. Inspiration comes from a wide range of sources; there is no limit in your search for ideas.

Joys

Joyful, happy experiences inspire us. Feeling positivity can push us to take actions to pursue our goals. The stimulation of being happy can trigger new ideas. It can help us recover from negative moods more quickly.[1] Connecting with others is one of the greatest sources of happiness and joy and trying to maintain and deepen those relationships inspires our creative thoughts. When we are feeling positive we are more likely to explore our curiosity.

Heartache/ trauma/obstacles

Painful emotional experiences of all kinds can certainly be creative setbacks. But they can also play a helpful part of the creative process. Obstacles force us to think outside the box and come up with alternatives (in our personal and professional lives). We are forced to work through the difficult feelings which can inspire new creative expression as well as practical solutions to our problems. Most importantly, difficult experiences makes us more resilient. Creativity depends on resilience.

Problems in your life or work

Some problems we face are more stressful than emotional. Often it is the fear of failure that stops creative energy from flowing. However, facing the challenges encourages risk taking, which is often where great ideas are born. The actual process of figuring out stressful problems strengthens all of your creative skills. Problems create a sense of urgency, of real consequences if they are left unresolved; this can help prevent or overcome procrastination. Problems also inspire new ideas, solutions to problems or ways to artistically express the experience itself.[2]

Your reaction to other creative’s work

Experiencing art encourages you to expand your own way of thinking. It can stir up a wide variety of emotions. Art encourages you to go for it and express yourself in an artistic way. Art can challenge you where you might disagree with the statement the artist has made or envision a different way to express the same idea. A performance can give you a new perspective on the world which inspires a creative pursuit to better understand.

Chaotic, random images or thoughts

Inspiration can come form just about anywhere. It is helpful to write down your ideas, dreams, thoughts, phrases. Get your ideas down and then start playing with them, often seemingly randomly at first, can get the energy flowing.[3]

How things work together, how different elements combine together in different ways creates style. Style helps shape your idea; it helps guide the creative energy.

“The creative person wants to be a know-it-all. He wants to know about all kinds of things: ancient history, nineteenth century mathematics, current manufacturing techniques, flower arranging, and hog futures. Because he never knows when these ideas might come together to form a new idea. It may happen six minutes later or six years down the road. But he has faith that it will happen.”

Carl Ally, A whack on the side of the head (1983)

Ideas need movement to stay alive, to be useful.

Put things out into reality. Keep them moving. Some will wither away on their own, unable to survive reality. Others will change and transform into something else completely. Don’t underestimate the power of a small push or a series of small pushes.

Keeping ideas moving

You have to be receptive to the flow of creative energy.

• Practices like meditation can help you develop that sense.
• Having physical outlets for your energy, not necessarily related to the creative work you wish to accomplish, also works well. Exercise, gardening, a different creative pursuit.
• Talking about your ideas with others helps get your own ideas flowing. Discussing idea is not the same as discussing specific plans; sometimes that can bog you down in other people’s advice, objections, or list of obstacles.
• Getting outside in nature is calming and inspiring.
• Don’t overwork yourself; make sure to build in plenty of downtime.
• When you are working, develop the skill of focusing only on one thing. Limit distractions of all kinds.[4]

Should have/could have

Maybe you have had an idea, not done anything about the idea, and then see someone else makes a big splash with the same idea months or years later. Maybe you realize you could have done it better.

Millions of people have ideas that could make life easier or more beautiful every day. But they don’t think about it any more than that. The people who are willing to explore even the most basic idea and take some small steps toward it end up doing more positive things than people who have grand, brilliant ideas but never act on them.

Fear and negative emotions

Negative emotions, like fear or anger, can be harnessed into creative outlets. Take the time to feel the feeling, actually physically and emotionally feel them. Then take that experience and keep the energy moving toward a positive, useful direction. 

“A static hero is a public liability. Progress grows out of motion.”

Admiral Richard E. Byrd (Arctic explorer)

You can define success however you want.

Your values do not have to match anyone else. You so not have to check the same boxes, strive for the same goals in the same way as anyone else. Many of us do share the same goals 

Know what is important to you

You get to decide how to live your own life. Ultimately no one can take that freedom of choice away from you. Every choice has consequences: maybe your family will be upset, maybe there are legal consequences to your choices, and certainly many other positive and negative results. But you always have the choice and knowing that can be the ultimate freedom. The things that you personally value are yours alone. There is no need to feel ashamed by what you want to do, what is important to you.

How to define your dream

It is okay to dream as big as you can and also important to be able to see all the many ways you excel on your journey towards your goals. The journey is made up of those choices you make moment to moment and the habits you build day to day. Your dream should also be flexible enough to change as you change, as the world around you changes.

“Creativity is work that goes some place: it is sustained effort toward an ideal.”

Michael Drury in Glamour, August 1963

New ideas come from stepping outside the conventional.

Advances in art, science or other endeavors are essential to the improvement of society. Creatives must understand the needs and issues affecting the culture, but in order to innovate, must remain partially or wholly outside society. An outside vantage point helps to break from the need to be like everyone else.

Use variety to see different angles

Keep your eyes and ears open to observe how others experience the world. Observation can help you understand why people think or do things differently from you. Understand that these differences are always going to be present and always have been. Trying to see the other point of view, can help you understand your own circumstances better. Interacting with people with different ideas, values and experiences opens up the possibilities for expressing your own ideas  and solving your own problems.

Challenge yourself to embrace the uncomfortable

So many of us want to change the world and yet of course we won’t if we keep doing things the way everyone else does them and has done them. Creativity implies something is new, something has been added in meaning and/or usefulness. We can take elements from the past, but they must be adapted to the present moment and the present environment.

Creation suggests something different, a change. If we as people who want to be creative keep doing the same things, reading about the same ideas, interacting with the same kinds of art, how will be grow and change?

If everyone and everything we interact with is in harmony with our preexisting ideas, how do we grow?

“I can do things the way I’ve always done them, or I can look at all the different alternatives and try something new and different and potentially more rewarding. Every moment presents a new opportunity and a new decision.”

Shakti Gawain, Creative visualization (1978)

The power of creation is unlocked by asking questions and not being satisfied with how things are at present.

If you see something that gives you joy and a sense of peace, it doesn’t need to be changed. But eventually something left as is becomes stagnant.

Question everything

Always ask why something is done a certain way and try to find the answer. Often there is a logical reason but maybe you can find a different way.

Even more important is challenging your own thinking. You will be forced to think deeper which will cause you to analyze the available information before making a conclusion. Asking questions helps us learn to evaluate data. This helps improve your decision making skills. When you challenge your own thinking it creates a proactive learning environment, which strengthens your understanding and recall.[5]  

Going deeper also helps you confront your preconceived assumptions about complex information and problems.  Your own biases and beliefs can prevent you from exploring the complicated, messy issues involved.

Creativity is about making something new. the only way to discover the new approach or new process is to explore the subject through questioning.[6]

Use the answers to create a solution

Creation comes from revolt, questioning, not being content with the way things are. The universe is made of energy and energy needs to stay in motion. Don’t be afraid of what you find out through researching and questioning. Also don’t be discouraged. So often the more you learn about a topic the more you find you need to learn.

“Discontentment is at the root of the creative process… the most gifted members of the human species are at their creative best when they cannot have their way and must compensate for what they miss and by realizing and cultivating their capacities and talents.”

Eric Hoffer, The ordeal of change (1964)

Creative energy is most effective when shaped to human qualities.

Art tends to work best on a human scale. Artists are human and can draw on the entire spectrum of experience. Audiences are also human and connect with other humans. We are united through shared

What makes a human?

Emotions. Humans possess a full range of emotional feelings and emotional expressions. These emotions make things messy and complicated for us. Our personalities are shaped by how we feel and express our emotions. These feelings inspire us to do great, wonderful things and to do terrifying, hurtful things as well.

Connections. Humans are social creatures. We have a need for interaction with others and to be part of a group and to feel accepted by that group.

Resilience. Humans have the ability to survive almost anything. We can fight off disease, disaster, being hurt or harmed by others and so many other things. We can start over, we can forgive. Even when those things are not possible, humans have an unending capacity to cope with whatever life brings their way.

Human traits and rights.

Lawrence R. Samuel wrote an article for Psychology Today The 10 Universal Human Traits (Dec. 2020). The ten traits he identifies are: belonging, community, creativity, curiosity, family, love, memory, purpose, storytelling, and voice.

In 1948 the  United Nations created the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, a common standard of achievements for all peoples and all nations. It sets out, for the first time, fundamental human rights to be universally protected and it has been translated into over 500 languages.

Imperfections are part of the product
Perfection does not exist in this world. No person is perfect, no idea is perfect. No work of art or creative effort is flawless. This is as close to a universal, absolute truth as you can get.

Since we cannot escape imperfection, we must embrace it. Walter Pater, the 19^th century writer and art critic, wrote that, “ it is the addition of strangeness to beauty that constitutes the romantic character in art.”[7]

Too much perfection in art can be jarring. When we see a glossy magazine article with a house that seems to have perfect rooms, it seems cold and uninviting. Models and celebrities whose faces and bodies are digitally altered to seem flawless don’t seem as real or appealing. This is one of the fears of artificial intelligence, that it will strip away the human qualities from images, writing and other computer generated art.

When we anthropomorphize machines or inanimate objects, we give them human qualities. We focus on the flaws inherent in the object to give it personality. We are creating a way for us to relate to (and sometimes scream at) nonhuman things by making them more humanlike.

Your authentic experiences, flaws and efforts are the things that make you accessible to others.

“When we try to pick out anything by itself, we find it hitched to everything else in the universe. One fancies a heart like our own must be beating in every crystal and cell. Man is not a fragmentary part of this world but contains the whole riddle of the universe and the solution of it.”

Nicolas Berdyaev, The destiny of man (1931)

The things you do will show who you are. Creative work should above all reflect the artist.

Individuality as point of view

The way you personally see the world is a result of your unique set of experiences. All of us are unique in the sense that no one else has ever had the exact same set of life experiences before. But out lives are far more alike than we probably want to admit.  When creating something, let your own sense of uniqueness come out and it will, paradoxically, allow more people to see themselves in it.

Self-expression as actions

Every word you say, every action you take shows others who you are. Mostly this is an unconscious process but your way of responding to challenges, to joys, comes across int eh ay you solve problems and create things.  

Style as connecting

Style is the outward way we express who we are.  In its most authentic expression it is not developed consciously. It is created and developed from your life, from your experiences and your personality. Style comes from what someone or something is. The details that are shared and relatable are best not manufactured and sold and bought. When style is a pure reflection of the essence, it is universally understood.

Whatever you are doing should reflect who you are and what you value.

“If you’re not honest with your work—if you’re merely feeling decorative—then the world will know. People intuit honest work. They know when they’re being tricked by clever metaphors in pictures, by dishonesty in the artist. You have to trust that your audience wants to learn, that it longs to feel something while looking at your art. If you don’t try to keep to this purpose, then you should be doing something else.”

Michele Zackheim, Broken colors (2007)

Affirming your creativity

Reinforce your connection to your own inner creator by admitting who you are and what you want. Find the simplest, most positive way to express those two things, and use those statements (made up of words, pictures, or sounds) to remind you of your path. Affirmations shape creative energy.

• I am creative.
• The world’s beauty inspires me.
• I stay in motion.
• I am successful.
• I embrace change and adapt to it.
• I nurture myself through curiosity and experimentation.
• Imperfections make me human.
• My stories are worth telling.

---

Creativity big ideas references

[1] How to Feel More Joy Every Day | Psychology Today

[2] How to Overcome Creativity and Innovation Pitfalls (linkedin.com)

[3] 10 Easy Ways To Find Art Inspiration (That Work) | Miranda Balogh

[4] The Creative Flow Guide (6 ways I harness it) (jakeyou.com)

[5] Importance of Questioning: Unlocking Critical Thinking Skills – Brilliantio

[6] Karen Maeyens: The value of asking questions | TED Talk

[7] Pater, Walter (1889). Appreciation