What is a Creative Coach?

 

The term ‘creative coach’ is a relatively new one that seemed to blossom alongside many other newer terms such as blogger and solopreneur. But the idea of creative coaching isn’t completely a new one – these are the people that work with creative types such as artists, writers, musicians and dancers to help them get the most from their talents. So what does a creative coach do and how do you know if you need one?

 

What the job entails

One of the big things about the kind of support you’ll receive from a creativity coach is that it is based on what the individual needs so no two coaching sessions are ever exactly the same. But there are some overriding principles that guide what a creative coach does.

The main job of the coach is to work a little like a life coach but with a focus particularly on your creative work. These coaches don’t just work with people who are ‘naturally talented’ and can help people harness a creativity in themselves they didn’t realise existed to make a career from it. They believe that everyone has some creativity inside them and just need to find the right outlet for it.

 

Benefits of working with a coach

Working with any kind of coach can help you understand and push past blocks that are holding you back in life. When you do this with a creative coach, then the focus is on blocks to your creativity. This might mean that you haven’t harnessed your creativity at all yet or it might mean you have reached a block in your ongoing progress that stops you improving.

A coach can also help you step back and take a broader look at what you do to see where you want to go and to instil a sense of meaning in your efforts. We all suffer from anxieties, doubts and fears but working with a coach can help you move past these, see your goals clearly and work towards them.

The overall aim is that your creativity shines through and you can be happy and productive, pursuing the career or activity that you love without mental blocks or fears stopping your progress.

 

Organising your creativity

Another aspect of working with a creative coach can be to help start a creative business, structure it and make something that will have the strongest possible chance of success. Often people have a ton of ideas but aren’t sure how to make them into something practical and profitable. Creative coaches can help you narrow down your focus, find the right niche for your talents and design a concept that will make a successful business.

Often, they will work with people who want to change their life, who have an idea for a business or a venture that they want to make into something tangible but are a little unsure how to do it. Creative coaches offer non-judgemental places for people to develop their creative skills and do whatever they want to do with them while allowing you to be what you want to be.

 

Creative Management

The role of business manager is often seen a very serious one that involves working with hard data, people management and not necessarily a great deal of creativity. But over the last few years, there has been a growing awareness that creativity in its many forms may be as crucial a skill for business managers as data processing, people management or goal setting.

 

The evolution of creativity

At one time, creativity was seen as something a bit airy – ‘artistic talent’ and such was something you were either born with or weren’t. It stood at the opposite end of the serious nature of being a business manager or entrepreneur and not really playing a part in most types of business even if they were involved in artistic industries.

Yet in a survey in 2010 by IBM that spoke to some 1500 chief executives from 60 countries and 33 industries, creativity was the most important leadership quality for business success, moving ahead of things like global thinking and integrity.

 

Why creativity matters

Since then, the importance of creativity in business and therefore as a skill for business managers has only continued to grow. Part of this has been an awareness that creativity isn’t just something limited to artistic professions such as authors, artists or musicians – in fact, it is a skill that most people can learn and that opens up the mind to a much wider potential.

 

Innovation

Creativity leads to innovation and this is something that all businesses require. If you want to grow, expand, make more profits or widen your customer base, you need to innovate and this requires creativity at all levels of the business. While those who create the innovations need to be creative, so too do their managers to allow them to develop, to prosper and to grasp their ideas.

 

Productivity

The aim of the business manager is to make everyone within the business operate at peak productivity and creativity can help with this. To find the best ways to work, the most efficient systems and novel solutions to problems, you need to be creative and to allow everyone around you to think ‘outside the box’. This leads to a sense of accomplishment and a better level of productivity.

 

Problem solving

Few problems are solved by doing the same thing over and over again – creative thinking is required to find a new solution to the problem. Therefore, managers need to apply this skill and cultivate it in their staff to find the solutions to problems facing the business at all levels.

 

Born with it?

There’s a perception that creativity is something you are born with but many studies and experiences show this isn’t the case. While some creative skills may be easier for some than others, all of us have some form of creativity, even though we might not recognise it as such. Therefore, by working with the right people, we can nurture this creativity and turn it into a practical skill that can help us develop in the right way for our profession and personal goals.

Creativity – Nature or Nurture?

 

When you are involved with a creative hobby or business, you will often have people tell you that they couldn’t do what you do because they don’t have the ability. We often perceive creativity as an innate skill that we are either born with or not. And while some skills or talents do seem to come from a natural ability, much more are as a result of training, learning and practice. So is creativity due to nature or nurture?

 

Wiring in the brain

There have been studies conducted on the subject to try and quantify what makes someone more creative than others and results are unsurprisingly varied. For example, writers, artists and musicians were found in some studies have a smaller corpus callosum – this is the fibres that join the two parts of the brain. This allows each side of their brain to develop more specialisation and could lead to a greater innate creativity.

Creativity may even have a genetic basis. A study by the University of Helsinki looked at a person’s musical creativity based on ability to judge pitch and time as well as composition, improvisation and arrangement skills. In their results, they discovered that one cluster of genes seems to correlate with musical creativity and is the same cluster associated with the plasticity of the brain. In other words, its ability to reorganise itself to make and break new connections between cells.

 

The part of inspiration

Another factor to consider with the question of creativity is that of inspiration. The classic example is that of author Mary Shelley. Back in 1816, she awoke from a vivid dream where she saw a ‘pale student of unhallowed arts kneeling beside the thing he had put together’. Unsurprisingly, this touch of inspiration led to the novel Frankenstein.

But interestingly are the surrounding factors at the time. She was sharing her home with a group who spent time chatting about ghost stories and electrical experiments while also spending time with established authors. And at that particular time, there were intense electrical storms. Shelley had little writing experience before the novel so did inspiration led to creativity or did her surroundings lead to the inspiration that led to the novel?

 

The argument for nurture

For many people, creativity comes through education, practise and repetition. You learn to paint because you take up the paints every day and work on what you can do. Over time, you get better, you learn what you like and one day you are an artist, exhibiting in a gallery. You may have been born with that artistic ability but without the work and education that goes into it, you would never have become an artist.

On the other hand, if you believe you aren’t creative and because of this, you never try to paint or begin to learn how to work with canvas, then you won’t ever become an artist. Not because you don’t have the ability necessarily, but simply because you have told yourself you aren’t creative and therefore your ability is never developed. Perhaps, deep down, we are all creative if we take steps to find what we can be creative with?

 

Creative Blocks & How To Fix Them

Wherever your abilities fall on the creative spectrum, there are probably days when your flow just isn’t… flowing.

It happens to the greatest professional creatives as well as the creative hobbyist and dabblers.

Creativity can be a fickle thing.

Scientists and philosophers are still trying to discover more about this mysterious and often magical aspect of our human experience. Some even struggle to define what creativity actually is.

So it’s not surprising that the rest of us can sometimes find ourselves baffled by the creative process.

But there’s good news.

Creativity has long been a fascinating subject to study, but in recent years, it has become even more of a hot topic, as it’s now being linked to the two big ideals; success and happiness.

So creativity experts are sharing their findings on how our creative minds work – as well as what we can do when the creative juices slow to a trickle or even stop altogether.

Watch the following video to find out two ways creative blocks can come about, as well as some helpful remedies to get you back into your flow.

 

How to Get Creative

A big welcome to you all.

We are super pleased that you landed on our page in your quest for creativity and we think you will be too.

Creativity isn’t something that comes naturally to everybody and even those who have a creative streak get a little blocked every now and again.

Unfortunately, in a day and age where almost every subject you can think of has been covered in one way or another, it is especially important that you can tap into your creativity in order to have a unique selling point or just stand out from the crowd and get noticed.

That’s where the Creative Insurgents come in.

The site is here for people from all backgrounds, be it a field in the creative arts right through to the suits, so be you a painter or an accountant Creative Insurgents is here to help you.

There will be tips, hints and advice in areas from home DIY, to creative thinking to marketing material help so you shouldn’t be short of inspiration!

To get us started, let us take a look at how you can get your creative ‘Mojo’ back in the world of the artistic.

Watch the vid below for some interesting thoughts on what art is and if you are really stuck in a rut or if you are holding yourself to too many rules.

It gives you some thoughts for how to get your head into the right space for creating and producing without purpose and has an interesting take on why it’s OK to ‘copy’.

If you use those techniques then they can be a really good spring for creating more poignant and well-developed projects in the future.