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Introduction: The Accidental Creative

accidental creative

If you want to deliver the right idea at the right moment, you must begin the process far upstream from when you need that idea. You need to build practices into your life that will help you focus your creative energy. There is a persistent myth in the workplace that creativity is a mystical and elusive force that sits somewhere between prayer and the U.S. tax code on the ambiguity scale. But the reality is that you can unquestionably increase your capacity to experience regular flashes of creative insight—“creative accidents”—bring the best of who you are to your work, and execute more effectively, all by building purposeful practices into your life to help you do so. These practices will help you stay engaged and productive over the long term without experiencing the rampant burnout that often plagues creative workers.

In other words, purposeful preparation and training using the tools in this book will directly increase your capacity to do brilliant work, day after day, year after year.

Before you dive in, there are a few critical ideas to digest:

It’s not what you know that matters, it’s what you do.

Regardless of what others may promise, there are no quick fixes or easy steps to supercharge your creativity. You will unleash your latent creative ability through regular, purposeful practice of the principle in this book. There are most certainly insights and “aha!” moments to be found in these pages, but knowledge alone won’t do the job any more than knowing the fundamentals of how to exercise will keep you physically healthy. You must be purposefully and intentional. The results are worth it.

You own your growth.

Regardless of your circumstances, you are the ultimate owner of your own creative growth. It’s not your manager’s responsibility, or your HR director’s, or your mother’s—it’s yours. Many people waste years of their life pointing fingers at other people for their own problems. No doubt there are some very unhealthy organizations and managers out there, but at the end of the day, playing the victim is a loser’s game. Own your growth.

It’s going to take time, and short-term results may vary.

As with anything worthwhile, restructuring your life to work in concert with the dynamics of the creative process will take time and dedication. In addition, there will always be circumstances beyond your control that affect your engagement from time to time. Because of this, the results of implementing these practices may vary during a specific period. Your eye should be on increased performance over time, not on snapshot productivity. Don’t lose heart. Stay engaged.

This is about more than just your work life.

It’s more and more difficult in today’s world to segment your life into buckets like “work,” “home,” “relationships,” “hobbies,” and so on. Every area of your life affects every other, and a lack of engagement in one area will quickly infect the rest. As you implement these practices, you will find that your newfound creative energy will infiltrate not just your work life, but all other areas of your life as well. A rising tide raises all boats.

* Source: The Accidental Creative by Todd Henry

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