Creativity Everywhere?

Ask 100 people to tell you what they think of when you say the words creative or creativity, and more than 80% will likely say  it has to do with painting, singing, writing, sculpting or something else related to the end products of the arts.

The first impulse -- the conditioned response -- associated with creativity is that it is something apart from "serious" work or learning. But creativity is a process, a way of seeing, a way of engaging the world with out-of-the-box-ness.

Famed psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi researched creativity and defined one of its central components as the flow state.  This is a state of being completely absorbed in what you are doing.  It is a state that any creative person shares with all creative people, regardless of degree or type of talent, or medium with which one is working.

Again, creativity comes down to a way of being.  In this case, it's almost a kind of trance or altered state of consciousness.

Contrary to the idea that going with the flow is a lazy ride wherever circumstances take you, Csikszentmihalyi's flow is a focused attention that drives you to keep going no matter how many obstacles are put in your way, no matter what the momentary challenges may be.

We all have the capacity to go with the creative flow.  What will you focus your flow state on today?