Your Creativity Isn't Dead (It's Just Gone Underground)
Remember that moment in art class when someone told you your tree didn't look "right"? Or maybe it was when your teacher said your story about ninja unicorns was "too imaginative"? Yeah, we've all been there – trapped in that soul-crushing box where creativity goes to die.
Sir Ken Robinson, the most-watched TED Talk presenter of all time, dropped this golden nugget in an interview that's been rattling around in my brain:
"Creativity is a process, not an event."
It's not about waiting for lightning to strike or some magical creative fairy to sprinkle inspiration dust on your keyboard. It's about showing up, doing the work, and trusting the process.
Somewhere between finger painting masterpieces and quarterly reports, most of us bought into the bullshit narrative that creativity is some exclusive club. Like it's some VIP room where only the chosen few get past the velvet rope. Our conventional education system has become this creativity-crushing machine, turning vibrant, imaginative kids into standardized-test-taking robots. Not because teachers want to (trust me, they're often as frustrated as we are), but because somewhere along the line, we decided that measurable meant valuable.
Your creativity didn't die – it just went underground. It's like that houseplant you forgot to water but somehow stays alive, waiting for someone to remember it exists. Every single one of us still has that creative spark within us. Sometimes it's buried under years of "that's not how we do things" or "stick to the template," but it's there. And unlike what the creativity gatekeepers want you to believe, you don't need permission to access it.
The real transformation happens when you stop waiting for creativity to happen TO you and start creating space FOR it to happen. It might take hundreds of hours. It might mean making some genuinely terrible art or writing some cringe-worthy paragraphs. But that's not failure – that's the process. Every creative "genius" you admire started somewhere, probably making stuff that would make them want to crawl under a rock today. The difference? They kept going. They showed up for the process.
So here's your invitation to the creativity revival: Start where you are. Make something bad. Make something weird. Make something that breaks all the rules. Because your creativity isn't waiting for permission – it's waiting for you to remember it's been there all along. And if you need a shot of inspiration to get started, treat yourself to Sir Ken Robinson's brilliant TED Talk. Consider it your first step in reclaiming your creative birthright.
A version of this article originally appeared on Launching Your Success in 2016.