THE BIG FIVE: RESILIENCE
Why creativity needs Staying power.
Now, let’s talk about the third Creative Behaviour, Resilience and why it’s so crucial, not only in waking your creativity up but keeping it fully activated.
As the creative process is an iterative one, using our creativity is trial and error. Inevitably, there will be setbacks.
There will be times, hopefully many, when things go well but there will be other times when they don’t.
During these setbacks our creative confidence gets tested. Sometimes to the point of giving up.
But here’s the thing…
Falling down is as much a part of the process as anything else. Anything from a minor trip to a major face plant is to be expected. It comes with the territory. Falling down then, isn’t the problem. The biggest threat to our creativity is not getting back up.
This is why we need to resilience.
As a Creative Behaviour resilience allows us to keep going in spite of these setbacks because it keeps us in the process long enough for our creativity to emerge and for the creative results to follow.
When we choose this behaviour and dial it up, we persevere through challenges, we recover quickly from setbacks, adapt in the face of adversity. From feedback to failures our capacity for resilience won’t stop us going down but it will mean that we’ll keep getting back up. And that’s why it’s one of the Big Five, because for the sake of our creativity and what we hope to create, we must keep getting back up.
All the behaviours require consistent practice but none more so than resilience. Practicing it once is simply not enough. The next setback will inevitably be waiting in line, and when it arrives, it will only threaten your emerging creativity all over again.
Practicing resilience as a behaviour, means choosing it repeatedly until it becomes embodied. That is what activates your creativity. Relentlessly poking it into being.
The next time something doesn’t work, notice the moment you feel tempted to stop. That’s the moment resilience becomes a creative behaviour.