You can't unleash creativity

Imagine you’re in your own brain and you suddenly find a hidden door. You open that door and it leads to a dark, dusty corridor. You brush away the cobwebs and come to a rickety staircase leading to a little attic room. As you make your way slowly up the creaking staircase you can see golden light coming from underneath the attic door. You hear a child’s laughter coming from the room. You get to the top step and excitedly turn the door handle and……

So many books, blogs and articles talk about ‘finding your inner child’ or ‘unleashing you creativity’, as if there’s some secret ‘creative’ compartment in your brain waiting to be discovered.

It’s both wrong and dangerous. When people go looking for this source of creativity and can’t find it, they think they weren’t blessed with the gift of being creative.

A creative mind is made by being open and curious as well as being prepared to put in the hard work to find an answer to whatever problem you’re trying to solve.

Of course, there is a secret compartment that makes us creative, but it’s an area none of us can access: our unconscious mind.  All we can do is feed it and wait for it to offer us its gems of wisdom.

You don’t unleash your creativity you create the conditions for creativity to happen.