Creativity is vital for my work. I drive great satisfaction from the ability to analyze a problem and apply my own solution. Creativity comes from a combination of schooling, training, life experience and our own unique perspectives. These combine to create solutions that are unique to each of us and our thought processes. Like many skills, our creativity will atrophy if we do not make deliberate attempts to replenish the traits that make this alchemy work. This means more schooling, training, experience and enhancing our own perspectives. I find the last part to be the most difficult.
Like many of us, I find routine to be the backbone of my days, weeks, and months. The same time to wake, to sleep, to eat (no mushrooms), to shop, to watch, or to vote. This routine becomes a comfortable womb. Yet my comfort zone stifles my creativity and encourages me to surround myself with the way that I have become accustomed. Do things the same way, solve problems the same way, and come to the same conclusions. Yet these paradigms need to be challenged and validated. I can refresh and stimulate my perspective from travel, reading, and visiting other companies, but the best way for me to keep growing my own perspective is to learn the perspective of others. To talk to as many people as I can, to find out what is important to them, to understand how they live, what they value and see how they interact. Each time I leave my own comfort zone, I find a growing moment or experience. My challenge is to recognize my routine, my cues, and to remember to pause long enough to remember to learn about the world. It will teach me what I need to learn.