Creativity, idea management, innovation. We all talk about the same things, right? I don’t think so. If we were, it wouldn’t come naturally to some to play with — while for others, it feels like an impenetrable leap from 0 to 1.
What is creativity?
To me, creativity is not a skill, it’s freedom. Let’s see what more official sources say:
Creativity requires both originality and effectiveness. (Source: The Standard Definition of Creativity)
Or, as Wikipedia puts it: Creativity is the ability to form novel and valuable ideas or works using one’s imagination. (Source: Creativity)
For a long time, valuable meant to me: vital for survival. That included creating things like entertaining texts. Only an author, perhaps, would call that an existential need. But even though art makes life worth living, I mean ‘existential’ quite literally. The title of this article gave it away: My creativity saved me.
Survival — through what, exactly?
As a child, everything is a game. With Legos and Barbies and a vivid imagination, entire worlds came to life in my head. Often I dreamed up houses or castles, sometimes tunnel systems or treehouses. It was about control, though never inside the game itself. My younger siblings contributed just as much to the stories we wove.
Still, control was central. I made sure we played especially when everything else got too loud. I built the world. And in that imagined world, I was no longer at the mercy of adults.
As a teenager, I began writing stories down. It started with a homework assignment in world history. Ancient Egypt cast its spell on me, and for the first time, I read one of my own stories aloud. It was fabulous!
Writing takes time — luckily! Time I could fill exactly the way I wanted to. Sitting at my desk or on my bed ‘up in the tower,’ I passed as diligent. As long as I kept up that image, I could write whatever I wanted, ponder for as long as I pleased, and follow my thoughts wherever they flowed. In my thoughts, I felt free.
As a management consultant, I had no hobbies and barely any free time. I wasn’t burned out, I was frozen inside. When I rediscovered dreaming (often daydreaming on my commute) and writing, I slowly began to return to myself. I saw beauty in everyday things, noticed mysteries at the side of the road, and suddenly felt called to solve them.
I found my way back to myself by making space to feel. Back then, I wouldn’t have said that, wouldn’t even dare think it. Because as a woman in tech, showing emotion was a flaw. But to write a good story, I needed compelling characters. Each of them carries a part of me: traits, wishes, secrets, struggles, and, above all, emotions. In imagined worlds, I allowed myself to feel.
In short, creativity served me as an excuse, a mask, and, more than anything, as a more beautiful alternative to reality. A place I could escape into at any time. And yet, so tellingly, I ‘never had time’ for it during my studies and early career.
Originality – was it ever truly new?
For a long time, I thought I was alone in this. Unique. Now I know I’m far from the only one who uses creativity as a way to survive. No one ever really taught me how. But maybe storytelling is humanity’s oldest way of chasing away the dark.
And the content? Let’s be honest: What story has never been told in some variation?
Sure, I have my own voice and form, perhaps even a unique perspective or unusual twist for building tension. But truthfully? I see patterns too clearly to claim: “I’m inventing something completely new.” Of course I’m not.
With the internet at our fingertips, novelty usually means trying a new combination of things. Connecting two or more known elements, changing their order, or transferring a pattern from one field to another. Just to name a few examples.
And that’s fine. All of these things make a work original. It’s no coincidence that even process designs can be protected by copyright.
Creativity, to me, is not the outcome. Not the idea. Not the product. It’s the creative process in and of itself with its movement, space, and permission.
We call ideas creative, but they’re just the beginning. The real joy starts when you follow that idea in thought, in conversation, or through prototyping.
That joy is what saved me. It wasn’t just one more text seeing the light of day. I learned a whole new set of skills. Playfully. Without pressure. Through freedom.
For me, creativity isn’t just a way forward. It’s also about turning inward. A process that helped me to find control, and right beside it, softness. A space where my inner chaos finally met structure. And where I learned to embody the flow state, sidestepping overwhelm and understimulation.
I believe creativity deserves more space. Within us, and in our work environment.
How does it show up for you? And what might happen if you followed it more often again?