Creativity as a treasure hunt

It’s not enough to be creative, you have to be creative at
something.

Creativity is a doing, rather than a being. The doing comes from
discovering goals, and achieving them. I say discovering goals,
rather than setting goals, because we’re good at setting a https://npfinancials.com.au/goals—
New Year’s resolutions spring to mind—but then forgetting all
about them.

Usually we forget about the goals we set as New Year’s
resolutions because the goals, although worthwhile in themselves,
weren’t “real” for us. We didn’t explore the goals deeply, and
therefore didn’t have any deep motivation to achieve those goals.

Motivation is all-important for creativity. If you’re highly
motivated to achieve a goal, you’ll shock yourself with how
creatively you set about achieving the goal. For example, imagine
you’re at the beach. You watch a friend swimming out beyond the
surf. Suddenly, you see a shadow on the water, and you realize
it’s a shark. You’re highly motivated to get your friend out of
the water, and you’ll be creative in your efforts to achieve that
goal.

This kind of deep motivation is important for any creative task.
The successful achievement of the task has to matter to you.

To discover what your goals are, you need to ask yourself
questions

The questions you ask aren’t important. However, it is important
that they be open-ended questions. That is, that they have more
than one answer, and that they lead to other questions.

Asking yourself questions opens you to possibilities. Chances
are, that unless you develop a program of systematically asking
yourself questions, you will never discover all the possibilities
your life holds.