The CREATE Process Increasing Creativity in Our Lives and Businesses

Note: This is the final part of a series on the CREATE process: Curiosity, Risk-Taking, Engagement, Adaptabiliity, Trust, and Energy; six steps that help bring more awareness to our creativity. The CREATE process increases the creativity in our own lives and businesses. Curiosity is the first step to developing a creative approach to our daily lives. Risk-taking, a necessity in the creative process, is next. Engagement, the practice of showing up in all aspects of our lives, takes us further into the process. What does that lead us to?Adaptability.As wedding and special event professionals, we are nothing if not adaptable. Those newer to the field often think that a well-designed production schedule or detailed timeline is the key to an event’s success. Ask any industry veteran, however, and they’ll praise our most valuable collective skills as problem-solving and adaptability in equal parts. The plan is only as good as the changes we need to make to it.Most wedding planners are self-proclaimed “control freaks”—and weddings aren’t the only things we like to control. We tend to say things like, “life got in the way,” when the reality is that life IS the way. The lessons we learn by way of the detours we take are often the most impactful. When we try to hold onto things too tightly, especially outcomes, we lose our grip on more than just the situation at hand. As Albert Einstein says, “The measure of intelligence is the ability to change.” We do this as second-nature for our events when problem-solving; our lives would benefit from the same willingness to change as needed.Trust.The next layer we get to as we delve deep into the practice of creativity is trust. Trust is vital when you are taking risks. Whether you are trusting yourself—that you’ll find a way to make it work—or trusting your team to lead the charge without you, very little is accomplished without trust in someone or something. We trust in the experience we’ve acquired. We trust in the professionals with whom we work, their quality of work, and their deliverables. We trust that the weather will not always cooperate, so we have back-up plans for our back-up plans. We trust that our advertising dollars will generate a return on investment. We trust, whether we realize it or not.The thing that we don’t always do is evaluate whether or not that trust is earned or well-placed. It’s easier to do with things like advertising costs or networking meetings; we can easily determine whether that time and money is well-spent. But what about the friend who has an opinion about everything you do, even though she’s never worked for herself? Or the partner or parent who wants to know when you’re going to go back to your “real job?” We have the ultimate responsibility, to ourselves, to monitor these relationships and their impact. It’s nearly impossible to consider trust without also looking at energy in the same breath.Energy.At its foundation, what do you believe to be true? In what, exactly, are you placing your trust? Do you trust that things will work out, that you’ll find the solution, that the team will work well together? Or do you believe nothing good ever happens to you, that you have the worst luck, that life has to be hard? Mahatma Gandhi teases this concept out for us:“Your beliefs become your thoughts, your thoughts become your words, your words become your actions, your actions become your habits, your habits become your values, your values become your destiny.”This isn’t to say that we can live isolated from others or their perceptions, or that their perceptions don’t impact us in some way. We can’t simply “wish” something away by thinking differently. The power in this concept, in understanding that our entire experience is based on our own energy and beliefs, is that we have the ability to change, grow, consider new thoughts and, therefore, change our reality.It doesn’t happen overnight. Oftentimes, it isn’t an easy process; growth rarely is. Think of the caterpillar in the cocoon. His growth, the transformation into a butterfly, is a solitary evolution, completely dependent on him, his willingness to be uncomfortable and surrender to the process. For his wings to be strong enough to support his weight, to carry him to new heights, he has to stretch them, beating against the confine of his cocoon. He has to fight for it. We’re no different. “Everything is energy,” according to an anonymous quote. “Your thought begins it, your emotion amplifies it, and your action increases the momentum.”Creativity can be innate, a natural trait with which we’re born. And creativity can be self-taught or coached and nurtured by others. The creative process takes us further than wowing our clients, setting trends, or winning accolades. The growth, the process, the expansion—that’s where we strengthen our wings. That’s where the real work happens. Curiosity, Risk-Taking, Engagement, Adaptability, Trust, Energy—used together, each builds upon the other, allowing us to go further in our creativity and our lives.__Tonia Adleta, PWP™, Aribella Events, www.AribellaEvents.com, www.toniaadleta.com, Philadelphia