Creativity – Just Let It Out

The image to the left is part of my friend’s exhibits at Toronto’s all-night arts festival Nuit Blanche. To get herself showcased in a prestigious celebration of the arts, she must be an artist! Maybe she works in advertising as a designer or something? Nope. She works as a suit. This art is just one of her creative outlets.

To develop your creativity, sometimes you just need to let it out. Let it run free, unbridled by purpose or goals. This is creativity in its purest form. At work, we are practiced at using creativity to solve a specific business problem. And this is useful, heck it’s my job! But there are always instances where you have to let go and lose yourself in a creative outlet.

A creative outlet is a white space to do whatever you want without specific goals. It can be used to express yourself, rant and rave, or be just for fun. The point is that it allows you to foster your non-work ideas. Then you take all of that inspiration, excitement and enthusiasm and apply it to a specific challenge.

Check out these examples of creative outlets. You could:

1. Go dancing
2. Sing in the shower
3. Write about someone you hate
4. Blog about funny random shit
5. Take up painting
6. Throw a frisbee
7. Take pictures of graffiti

But most of all, have fun with it. Creative outlets are there to remind you why you like being creative. There are times when we get caught forcing ourselves to compromise our ideas to abide by legal requirements or client “suggestions”. With your creative outlet, the only person you have to answer to is yourself. And, I’ll be honest … sometimes I don’t even do that.

- Christian