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Academics are quick to point out that creative people get stuck in two positions within the workplace: the very top or the very bottom.
A mass culling occurs in the middle which requires order, hierarchy and subordination. All of which tend to go against the creative way of life which requires exploration, chaos and often rebellion. And whilst most creative people end up doing mechanical work within organisations, some realise that the very creative act can be applied to jobs themselves.
Creativity is a power you can wield
Creatives won't need to apply for jobs when they realise they can create their own. I’m continually surprised at the amount of creative people I meet who aren’t aware that their creativity doesn’t need to be constrained by their medium of choice. Painters can leave the canvas. Photographers can leave the camera. Actors can leave the stage.
Creativity is still running through their veins with or without the paintbrush, lens or script. It’s an overflowing reservoir waiting to be used on how they support themselves financially.
Applying creativity to the work environment
There is a moment where creative people notice that their creativity can be applied to the work environment itself which I call the Creative Enlightenment. This is when they realise that the job they’re in was itself a creative act. Pushing calls, designing marketing visuals for a project or sitting in on Zoom meetings are all structures that were at one time, non-existent. In this realisation they then begin to ask themselves, “What if I created my own?”
This is a liberating experience, discovering you can create your own job. If creatives apply their creativity to the working world around them they can stumble upon approaches to it that fits their natural rhythm.
For example if they work in creative flows, they may be better suited to working for a week non-stop and then spending a week off, consuming and being inspired by life. Or they may negotiate a ‘first of it’s time’ contract like Ray Charles did when he told Paramount Records in 1960 that he wants to own his master recordings and complete creative control. They can look at the environment and change it knowing that it was at one point created.
Not everyone is made for creative up-hauling
The Creative Enlightenment is not available to everyone. Only people who are creative are able to experience it. This is because creativity is a part of their personality and a dominant trait. They commonly are drawn into jobs that require mechanical creativity. Churning out social media content that is repetitive, completing similar websites for clients or taking wedding photographs with the same LUTs are all examples. There’s a repetition here that often doesn’t stimulate their highest forms of creativity. They fall into these jobs because they aren’t yet aware that their creativity can change the structural limits they’re told to remain within.
Creatives already have the necessary trait to create their own job which is creativity.
However many haven’t woken up to applying it to other areas of life. Asking interesting questions like, “What if I only did work that felt deeply fulfilling, what would my day look like?” or “What would my home office look like if I redesigned it based purely on inspiration?” Accepting that you are creative is easy. Applying it to your entire life is the challenge but it’s also where the magic happens. Rather than applying for jobs, imagine what would happen if you created your own.
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