CREATIVITY - benefits, and how to experience flow

This week we Talk and Learn About CREATIVITY (including the benefits of creativity and how to experience flow)

(You can skim this short email or dive in to the many links if you would like to learn more!)

?FIRST – THE CREATIVITY PODCAST

This week’s podcast is a little different than previous episodes. Sure, you will LEARN a lot, but the main objective of this episode is to INSPIRE you to be more creative – in everything you do. I had the privilege of interviewing three talented and smart women with creative careers. There’s Jenn Purkis, a decorator at X&In Design, Daryl Aitken, founder and owner of quilting store Fabric Spark, and Lori Ryerson, photographer at Focalocity. (Yes, these are the same insightful guest experts who you hard a few weeks ago, Talking About COLOUR.)

Amongst other things, you will learn about the many BENEFITS OF CREATIVITY.

On creativity:

is an excuse to go out and try new things. A catalyst to experience life, if you will.
encourages us to be more mindful: to focus on what we are doing and to be more observant of our surroundings
encourages us to be more open-minded and more conscious of our own emotions
can even act as a catalyst for travel
can provide various forms of external validation (ranging from compliments, to sales revenue, to formal awards)
provides an opportunity to experience happiness and flow

Thank you, Jenn, Daryl & Lori!

Hopefully you too are inspired to do something creative every day!

?TALK & LEARN ABOUT FLOW

Have you ever experienced FLOW? Being “in a flow state” is described as being in the zone or in the groove. It is a fantastic, rare and addictive feeling that we may experience when we are focused on creative pursuits. Fortunately, I have experienced it several times when I have been painting (it’s when there are no distractions and I like what is happening on the canvas).

The term FLOW was coined by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi in 1975. Not coincidentally, his research also focused on creativity and happiness. Csikszentmihalyi highlights that flow is when you lose sense of time and space, and it’s when you feel the most happiness. If that isn’t a good reason to pursue creativity, I don’t know what is! According to Csikszentmihalyi, flow happens when we are concentrating on a challenging task and demonstrating proficient skill.

Csikszentmihalyi, M., Finding Flow, 1997.

Flow can also happen when we are:

learning something new,
listening to music,
playing sports,
praying or meditating, and
even when we are at work (under certain conditions!)

Flow is very common when we are pursuing creativity. The three guest experts from the Creativity podcast all told me about when they experienced Flow:

Jenn: “It’s almost a high… I can’t explain that feeling that I get with anything else… There is something about making something yourself. There’s a high like no other… There is something about working with your hands that I can’t imagine anyone else feels.”
Daryl: “I would say I’ve experienced “flow” when sewing. I definitely think I’ve experienced flow. I think when I was building my website. When I’m buying fabric…Hours can go by, and I have no sense of time. I’m totally in my happy place. And it’s silly because I’m just BUYING fabric, but I really love that.”
Lori: “Being in the zone is when I’m actually out in the field with my camera. And there have been times where people have been talking to me and I couldn’t begin to tell you what they said. I didn’t hear a sound … It’s phenomenal. It’s like nothing you can describe.”

?QUOTES WORTH TALKING ABOUT

Every week we share a few quotes worth talking about. This week we focus on CREATIVITY:

? I hope you enjoy this week’s
podcast on CREATIVITY.

I promise these ladies will make you smile,
they will make you think,
and they will make you want to be creative.

Jenn Purkis of X&In Design

Lori Ryerson of Focalocity

Daryl Aitken of Fabric Spark

I hope you are inspired to be creative.
And I hope you experience FLOW someday soon!

As always, I would ❤️to talk! I appreciate your suggestions, your topic ideas, and anything else you would like to talk about. You can always connect with me at https://talkabouttalk.com/contact/.

Recently, I heard from a few TalkAboutTalk podcast listeners that they didn’t realize that subscribing to the podcast and subscribing to the email blog are two different things. To clarify: they ARE different! If you subscribe to the podcast, each new episode will automatically show up in your podcast app when it is released. If you subscribe to the email blog, you will receive one weekly email from me that summarizes the podcast AND that contains other communication-related learnings that I think are worth Talking About.

PLEASE forward this email to anyone you think might be interested in learning and Talking About all things “Communication.”

Thank you!!!