Creativity is a Survival Tool
SYNCHRONICITY. Awhile ago I posted a video on instagram talking about how we are receiving messages all the time. We should be aware and be present to these occurrences. Not only do they feel magical, but they are meant to teach us something!
This morning I woke up early, and when that happens I often lay in bed and try to meditate on what I need to do for the day, more specifically, I ask for guidance from the Universe. I’m grateful that I have come to accept what I feel called to do, but the realization hit me that if I don’t become more visible out in the world, no one will ever know what I have to offer. I have resisted marketing - that’s a whole other discussion - attempting to sell yourself, yuck. How can I authentically start putting myself out there? This is what I began to ponder and envision.
Because it was still early, before I got out of bed, I picked up a book, “Playing Big” by Tara Mohr, a coach in women’s leadership. The chapter just happened - synchronicity - to be about how we hide ourselves from visibility by staying safe in our comfort zones. This fact in itself is no big shock, but she explained that a big reason for this is due to our EDUCATION:
““I was raised, as so many girls were, with the message “Get good grades in school, work hard, and you’ll do well in your career.”
This narrative about the new meritocracy for women in the work world was a core message my generation and those who followed received - from our moms and from the media. The problem? It ignored a number of other factors that are critical for career success, one of them being self-promotion - making your work visible.
The idea that good work is enough is strongly reinforced in school, because doing well in school does not require self-promotion. It requires only doing quality work and handing it in to the teacher. Girls in school don’t have to navigate the difficult territory that adult women do: being high achievers without threatening peers or coming across as unlikeable, unfeminine.”
This so resonated with me, and the idea that our children - my two daughters - are still in this system, gave me pause and the desire to change the system. What can I do differently to change the pattern?
Ok, so even MORE synchronicity: a little later I got up to check something on Instagram and a beautiful animated image came up, like something from a Miyazake movie. It made me want to listen to the message, because it was about creativity. A narrator explained that in the ‘60s there had been a study by NASA conducted by a man named George Land. NASA wanted to know how to hire more geniuses, and were asking the question, “What makes a genius?”. They composed a creativity a test asking 5 year olds how they use imagination to solve problems. 98% of the children qualified as genius. They followed up at later ages and found that the older they got, the more the use of imagination and creativity dimished. As adults, it was 2%. In the end, George Land attributed this diminishment to SCHOOL - our education system. He said that “uncreative behavior and thinking is learned”.
I don’t know the veracity of this information from an instagram post, I will look it up, but the point to me is that we do hold ourselves back because we seek the approval of others, especially authority. I’m not blaming teachers here, I know some wonderful teachers. This is our culture, our social structure, Every human being has creativity at their core, in whatever way it expresses itself…it may not be the arts, it may be in accounting, in gardening, in teaching!
Building the courage to be visible is not easy, since we learn from a young age to shut a part of ourselves off. For those of us who find it hard to self-promote, we should have self-compassion. Its not our fault. It takes a lot of inner chutzpah to change the pattern! With practice, we can. And we must regain our sense of creativity and imagination. Creativity is what fosters innovation, we need innovation to build a new future…thus creativity really is a survival tool for a better life.