Learn how to be creative

The way we're conditioned to think about concepts like creativity in school is that it's binary, you either have it or you don't.

But creativity doesn't work this way. Creativity is something you learn, a set of skills that you develop over a long period of time, not some natural gift you either have or don't have.

The belief that you're not creative is reinforced by the disconnect between where you are currently and the "creative geniuses" you look up to. You read their writing, admire their designs, watch on in awe at their cinematography, and wonder how they have the creativity to make this masterpiece.

But to that person what they created was obvious. They didn't magically create that masterpiece in one afternoon, it took years of compounding work. They pulled pieces from anywhere and everywhere. Taking ideas from their favourite writers, designers, and artists then adapting that to their own work. Eventually they started to find their own voice and people started to see them as "creative". All they were doing was sharing things that are obvious to them.

"What is obvious to you is amazing to others." - Derek Sivers

The secret that "creative" people know is that nobody is born creative. Prolific creators are just spitting out combinations of things they’ve taken in, eventually finding their own style.

The key to unlocking what we call “creativity” is to just put things out there as often as possible. Through iteration, learning, and improving people will start to see you as “Creative”.

Everything ever created is just a remix of existing ideas combined in a unique way to create something new.

Being creative is not just a magical gift, it’s the result of hard work. Creativity comes from beating resistance day after day, sitting down and doing the work. Slowly improving until what's obvious to you becomes amazing to others.

Creativity is not sexy. And it's not easy. The only way to succeed in pursuit of becoming creative is to follow what's uniquely interesting to you and to share your work.

Creative thinkers are not born with a talent, they followed different paths, questioned things, put in the work, shared what seemed obvious to them, and did it every single day.