How to Stay Creative in Ambiguous Times

Life-changing Ways to Stay Creative in Ambiguous Times

Finding it difficult to stay creative during these ambiguous times?

Times of ambiguity or crisis are a part of life.

We’ve all been there at one time or another: stuck in uncertainty. It’s a scary place to be, and can leave you feeling stuck, out of control and helpless.

Times full of ambiguity are the ideal days for you to exercise your creativity.

Here are 4 hacks to sail through uncertainty and stay creative in ambiguous times:

1. Utilize the time to read more: 

Some of the most successful and busiest people on our planet are also avid readers.

If you find yourself with entirely new blocks of time open to you, commit to reading more.

That is because:

• Reading sparks your creativity, and helps grow your understanding of complex problems.
• It grows you intellectually, while at the same time, it is also a very relaxing activity.

Fiction requires us to experience reality from a perspective, very different from our own reality and hence, helps us to exercise empathy and stay creative.

However, you can also read nonfiction thought leadership books and articles that you have stockpiled in your “must-read” list.

2. Reflect on YOU:

Many world champion athletes, business people, and spiritual gurus share self-reflection as an essential key to their success. The same is also true for ‘everyday people’ who seems so fulfilled and happy with their lives.

So why is self-reflection so important to lead a successful and fulfilling life and to stay creative in ambiguous times?

• Improve self-awareness: Having a strong sense of self improves your self-esteem and boosts your confidence.
• Provide perspective: It allows you to see things from a different perspective i.e. you can zoom out and see the whole forest.
• Allow you to respond, not react: When you take out time to reflect on a situation, you respond more thoughtfully and change your behavior for the next time.
• Facilitate a deeper level of learning: Self-reflection is a critical part of the education process. Studies have shown, when people are given time to reflect, they are better able to retain and recall the information.

3. Spark wonder through play:

Play allows an individual to deliver creativity in a certain way. 

It allows a person to discover why and how things are done in a certain way or finding new and different solutions to it.

As kids, we all are born with curiosity to learn, explore and experiment new things. However, as we grow older, learning by creating as a way of play is decreasing.

Playing requires a person to focus, accept the unknown, offers the challenge and develops the ability of a person to use creative thinking.

Example of implementing the elements of play in real life:

Unlock the 007 in you. You have 70 seconds: This was a real-world experience, a campaign to win the ticket for James Bond movie and is an example of how to put a play in the creative promotion of an upcoming movie.

This example shows, how inserting play can lead to changes in the behavior of people and helps to stay creative in ambiguous times.

4. Look forward with gratitude and generosity.

This time is your chance to take inventory of what you have done and arrive at fresh insights.

Ask yourself a question: “What can you do now, so that when you look back on your past, you would be saying “thank you” with deep gratitude for this time?”

Many people recommends practicing generosity by asking who you can help, for example, offering free webinars. 

When you humble yourself to be helpful and grateful to others during adverse times, you refuels your creativity.

Ambiguous times always brings out unintended & surprising outcomes and make it difficult to stay creative. On an individual level, a person gets to be more self-reflective, slow down, and identifying what really matters. 

At an organizational level, we get to discard the way we’ve always done things and take a temperature check on our organizational culture. 

There is always a silver lining in every ambiguous and uncertain situation, if you look at the positive side to increase your creativity.