Why You (Incorrectly) Think You're Not Creative

A few years ago, one of my readers, Meshack Vallesillas, helped me to see that for many decades, I was underselling my own skills. Perhaps today I can perform the same service for you.

Meshack sent me a link to an article he had written. Describing his own struggles to be creative, Meshack said, “(I finally) understood that anything you might consider ‘art’ is made up of two parts; creativity and craft. The craft is the artistic skill to make the art, while creativity is the spark of life or the ingenuity behind it.”

He continued, “That also made me understand that when someone says they aren’t creative, they are mistaking creativity for craft.”

This last statement took my breath away.

Craft is how you do stuff. It is the byproduct of working hour after hour, week after week, year after year. It is something you acquire by learning a skill.

If you want to develop your craft, put in your time.

Creativity is the way in which you use craft.

You can be creative without being a great craftsperson

Meshack argued, “The need to be creative is part of being human. It’s a need we all have and a need that must be fulfilled for us to find engagement in our work, in our relationships, in our lives.”

Think you aren’t creative? You probably just lack the craft.

For decades, my perception was that I lacked any artistic creativity whatsoever: I can’t paint, and can barely draw. Then the world changed. It’s now easy, inexpensive or even free to access art that other people created.

Thanks to Creative Commons, you now have a mechanism through which you can use - for free - the work of talented artists or writers... if they give you permission to do so.

Or, for a very modest fee, you can license the rights to icons and simple images posted at the Noun Project. I created the image at the top of this post by combining two Noun Project images and adding a few words.

Over the past three months, I finally decided that visual thinking (creativity) is more important than drawing ability (craft), so I've been posting my own napkin sketches as updates on LinkedIn. Many of them garner more Likes and Shares than my articles. Here's an example:

My napkin sketches reach numerous people who never read one of my articles. This is only possible because I stopped editing myself. I may not have the craft, but I have the creativity.

I bet the same is true for you.

This experience has taught me that huge portions of the human race have untapped creativity. Combine them with people who possess craft, and then watch amazing innovations emerge. By the same token, if you take people who possess great craft and combine them with people from different backgrounds and perspectives, the same wonderful results will emerge.

Andy Warhol was a famous artist, but by most accounts Andy basically operated a factory in which other artists created “his” art; Andy was the idea guy. He mixed his creativity with other people’s craft.

Never make the mistake of thinking you are not creative. If you have this perception, seek out others with the craft to help you express your best ideas.

Here’s Meshack’s original piece, Changing This One Thought Could Lead You to a Better Life.

One last note: I never stop tinkering. This article originally appeared on Forbes, then about two years ago it was on LinkedIn. This evening, I substantially rewrote it, in an attempt to help more people (like you) harness more of their skills.

Bruce Kasanoff ghostwrites articles for a wide range of business professionals.