Creative Pep Talk #95: (Re)Define Your Creativity

What if the question of your creativity is more about how you define the term than whether or not you have any? I explain in this short episode.

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Transcript: (Re)Define Your Creativity

Please note: This is an unedited transcript, provided as a courtesy, and reflects the actual conversation as closely as possible. Please forgive any typographical or grammatical errors.

Nancy Norbeck [00:00:06]:
Welcome to Follow Your Curiosity. Ordinary people, extraordinary creativity. Here’s how to get unstuck. I’m your host, creativity coach, Nancy Norbeck. Let’s go. Hi, folks. I have a quick announcement before we get started. This past autumn, I launched a 6 week group program called Make Bad Art.

Nancy Norbeck [00:00:26]:
The first round of that program finished just before Christmas, and it was a rousing success. During our time together, we tackled self judgment, challenged our perfectionistic behaviors. Were those rules we’ve been led to believe really true or just arbitrary or even made up? And gave ourselves permission to be our imperfect selves. We also, of course, spent time making bad art quite intentionally to shut down those voices and bring out the creative inner kids we’d lost touch with. You know, the ones we all used to be who knew how to play without worrying what others think. Along the way, folks in the program rediscovered themselves as artists and found their true selves under all the things our culture tells us we have to be. They loosened up, and above all, they remembered how to play and have a lot more fun. Sound appealing? I invite you to check out the course for yourself.

Nancy Norbeck [00:01:18]:
The next round starts very soon on January 20th, and we would love to have you join us. If you have any questions at all, please get in touch with me. I’m happy to help. No pressure, no judgment, just a chat. You can find all the details and my contact info at MakeBadArtCourse.com. Hope to see you there. Hey, everybody. This is Nancy Norbeck with this week’s creative pep talk.

Nancy Norbeck [00:01:42]:
And, you know, I wanna talk to you this time about defining your creativity and maybe redefining your creativity. A couple months ago, I talked about recognizing your creativity, And and this is kind of a related thing. In that pep talk, I talked about meeting an actress who told me that she wasn’t creative. And, you know, part of the reason that she said that I suspect is that she didn’t define acting as a creative thing. That may sound strange to you and me because we may define active as acting as an inherently creative thing. I certainly do. But she probably didn’t. And I think that this is a problem when we talk about creativity is that we don’t always talk about the same things.

Nancy Norbeck [00:02:26]:
This came up for me again recently as I was walking through a local shopping center and I found this really cool, not exactly store, but it was an artist collective. So obviously I was curious and I had to go inside. And once I went inside, I ended up talking to one of the people who was there. There were it was a huge a huge area, and each artist had their own little studio area. So there were, you know, individual spots for a lot of different people and there weren’t very many people there that day. But there was one guy there who did stained glass and we started talking. And he told me that one of the ongoing debates between him and other people in this collective was whether or not he was actually creative. And so if you’ve been listening for a while, you can imagine that my ears perked up.

Nancy Norbeck [00:03:20]:
And so he his argument was that there was nothing actually creative about what he does and that it was just a craft that he doesn’t necessarily design the things that he creates, that it’s kind of a paint by numbers thing. And I take his point, but at the same time he still has an urge to create. And so to me that’s still being creative. He still is fulfilling that urge to create. He also showed me some things that he had done in previous roles and jobs that obviously required a great deal of creativity. But he was defining that as problem solving and that saying that his form of creativity was in that problem solving. Now I’m not going to argue with him there because I do think that problem solving is inherently creative. That’s that’s where a lot of problem solving comes from.

Nancy Norbeck [00:04:14]:
You know, somebody comes up with a clever new creative way to fix something that nobody thought of before. That’s definitely creative. But I couldn’t help but think that he was kind of defining himself out of his creativity just like that actress was that I spoke to a couple months ago. And the same thing kind of happened, I suspect, with someone who was in my make bad art program this fall who came in and said that she signed up in part because she wanted to see if I could prove to her that she was creative. Now she proved this to herself in the very first make bad art exercise that we did. So it only took about half an hour. But then I found out later that she had been involved in improv, you know, improv comedy, like whose line it is it anyway kind of stuff that we’ve all seen. And I was absolutely baffled because to me, that is one of the most inherently creative things you can possibly do.

Nancy Norbeck [00:05:07]:
You are making stuff up out of thin air. But my guess is that she didn’t define that as creative. That she probably, and I’m hoping to get to ask her about this, but I haven’t been able to yet, that she probably defined creativity as something like painting or dancing or, you know, something else that was not improv comedy. And therefore, she didn’t think of it that way. So my challenge to you is to rethink your definition of creativity. Mine, as you know, is is quite broad, which is why on this podcast, I have talked to everyone from math professors and mathematicians and computer programmers to a forensic accountant because I think there’s creativity in almost everything that human beings can possibly dream up to do because we are inherently creative creatures. But your definition may not include those things, and I understand why. But think about how you’re defining it for yourself and whether or not your definition is really accurate.

Nancy Norbeck [00:06:10]:
Are you defining yourself out of your own creativity? And if you are, where can you acknowledge your own creativity a little bit more? Because most people who swear they’re not creative have either been told so implicitly or explicitly by a teacher or a parent or some other well meaning soul who thought that they were being misguided in following their dreams, or have just defined their creativity out of their lots. I have just assumed that it didn’t exist in an acceptable or predefined way. So if you think you might be doing that, and if you believe that you’re not creative, I can almost guarantee you that you are. I just invite you to rethink what you think creativity is and where you probably be are being creative, but aren’t giving yourself credit for it. If you like to cook, I guarantee you you’re a creative person because cooking is a very creative thing, just as one example. If you like to solve problems, boy, are you a creative person. So rethink your definition and see where you might be missing out. So if you start your new year that way, I think you will find that you will be having a more creative new year.

Nancy Norbeck [00:07:30]:
So that’s my new year’s wish for you. And with that, I’ll see you next time. If this episode resonated with you or if you’re feeling a little bit less than confident in your creative process right now, join me at the spark on Substack as we form a community that supports and celebrates each other’s creative courage. It’s free and it’s also where I’ll be adding programs for subscribers and listeners. The link is in your podcast app, so sign up today. See you there and see you next week. Follow Your Curiosity is produced by me, Nancy Norbeck, with music by Joseph McDade. If you like Follow Your Curiosity, please subscribe, rate, and review on Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts.

Nancy Norbeck [00:08:12]:
And don’t forget to tell your friends. It really helps me reach new listeners.