LifeDesign | Creativity
Creativity is a combinatorial force: it’s our ability to tap into our ‘inner’ pool of resources – knowledge, insight, information, inspiration and all the fragments populating our minds – that we’ve accumulated over the years just by being present and alive and awake to the world and to combine them in extraordinary new ways.
— Maria Popova
Class Resources
Creativity is the ability to harness imaginative ideas and bring them to reality. This can involve seeing the world in a novel way or being open to inspiration, asking good questions or brainstorming solutions in an innovative way. Creativity, like other skills, can be built and improved, and a key starting point is believing that you have the capacity to be a creative person and building your ‘creative confidence’.
How to Build
Creative Confidence
In this TED Talk, David Kelley suggests that creativity is not the domain of only a chosen few, but that we can all tap into our own creativity and build our creative confidence. Telling stories from his design career and his own life, he offers ways to build the confidence to create. (12 minutes)
Do Schools Kill Creativity?
In this humorous and engaging talk, Ken Robinson explores how we might re-conceptualize the educational process, placing creativity on equal standing with other subjects. (18 minutes)
Can Creativity Be Taught?
August Turak explores insights about creativity in his short piece published in Forbes Magazine.
What We Get Wrong About Creativity
A beautiful reflection on creativity from Thomas Bragg of Yes Theory
The Science of Creativity
How Creativity Improves Health
Ashley Stahl explores how creativity improves mental health, physical health and brain function.
Your Brain on Art
A National Public Radio Piece that explores how art and creativity impact the brain and body. "Creativity in and of itself is important for remaining healthy, remaining connected to yourself and connected to the world," says Christianne Strang, a professor of neuroscience at the University of Alabama Birmingham
Make it happen
You Can Draw!
In this TED talk, Graham Shaw walks you through a series of simple steps that gives you confidence that you can draw, even if you never thought you could.
(15 minutes)
Think Creatively
The American Psychological Association suggests these tips to generate more creative ideas more regularly, and to help to build systems that support your creative impulses.
How to be creative and get going again when you hit a block, or you do not feel you are at your best. How to get from where you are to where you want to be.