Ep 94: Owning Your Creativity: Trust Your Instincts and Embrace Your Unique Way of Thinking

What if creativity wasn’t just for artists, but the driving force behind how you solve problems, make decisions, and move through life? In this episode of The ARTwork of YOU, Lori Gouhin invites you to see creativity in a whole new light, as something you already have, and something you can fully own.

Drawing from her background as an educator and her experience coaching clients, Lori explores:

• Why creativity is a core life skill, not an optional talent
  
  
  
• How to identify your unique creativity  and work with your natural strengths
  
  
  
• The concept of an “Individualized Expression Plan” to help you think, create, and problem-solve in your own way
  
  
  
• Practical ways to trust your instincts and bring more originality into your daily life
  
  
  

Whether you’ve always thought of yourself as “not creative” or you simply want to honor your unique way of thinking, this conversation will help you see your creativity as a strength and give you the language and confidence to embrace it.

Thank you for sharing your time with me and remember to show up in your life like the masterpiece you are because YOU are the ARTwork!!!

Please subscribe and leave a 5 Star Review.

Have a fabulous day!

Thank you for sharing your time with me and remember to show up in your life like the masterpiece you are because YOU are the ARTwork!!!

Please subscribe and leave a 5 Star Review.

Have a fabulous day!

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Transcript

Lori Gouhin: [00:00:00] that creative capacity is still in each and every one of us.

And when it gets the space to grow, when people are supported in figuring out how they create best,it doesn't just shift how they feel. It shifts what they can do, and in turn, it shapes what they are able to bring to the world.  Hello my friends. I am so glad that you are here with me today because today I want to talk about creativity. And for those of you who don't know, way back when I used to [00:01:00] be a fifth and sixth grade teacher. And I guess because back to school time is really quickly approaching, at least around where I live.

I've been thinking lately about how much of what we notice and measure, especially in school, is what's easiest, I would say, to quantify. For example, reading levels, math levels, test scores, neat handwriting. Maybe that makes sense, I guess, in a system that needs structure. But I keep thinking about the students who are wildly imaginative, who come up with ideas that no one expected or who really see the world in ways that don't quite fit into the, I guess, educational rubric.

And it made me wonder, what if we actually graded creativity? Not necessarily in a rigid way, but what if creativity and curiosity and originality. What if those things were noticed and encouraged just as much as all the other stuff? [00:02:00] How would it change the way we see ourselves even years later? So today, that's what I wanna talk about.

And when I think back to being in the classroom, it's interesting because. You notice right away how quickly some kids figure out what's rewarded. You start to see it early. Who learns to raise their hand with the right answer? Who starts holding back with their weird ideas? Who becomes the good student by learning the rules of the system and not just the academic rules, but the social ones too.

And I would say most of those rules don't leave a lot of space for creativity. Because creativity allows for interpretation in school, whether it's elementary school or college or an employer, actually they generally expect more conformity in an objective rather than subjective behavior.

And because of that. I would say that creativity often gets overlooked or dismissed as a distraction, especially [00:03:00] when kids are younger. But the more you look at it, the more it becomes clear how much creativity shapes everything, how we solve problems, how we make decisions, how we connect the dots that don't seem like they go together.

It is behind our ability to adapt and to empathize and to create new ways of doing things. And I don't think it's a distraction at all. I think it's central to nearly everything. And yet we rarely say things like, that's an incredibly imaginative way to approach that, or, I love how original that idea is.

We don't track that. We don't reward it in any formal way, so it often gets treated like it really doesn't count. If creativity was treated as foundational instead of optional, something to be supported and expanded rather than squeezed in at the end or something like that, I think it's more likely that people would grow up trusting their instincts and more people would feel confident [00:04:00] making things up as they go.

Not because they're being rebellious or anything like that, but because they were taught that their way of thinking has value. Even if it looks different, it makes you wonder how many people carry around a quiet sense of doubt. Not because they lacked creativity, but because it was never something that got reflected back to them as a strength.

It just didn't register as part of what success looked like, and not because anyone was trying to necessarily shut them down. I'm not saying that, but because it didn't fit the structure. And so let's just play with that idea for a second. What if creativity. Actually had a place on the report card, not as an afterthought or as an extra, but as something that held as much weight as math or reading or science.

Something you get feedback on, and not to evaluate you, but to reflect back what's already there. And maybe it wouldn't even have to be a [00:05:00] grade, maybe it could be a few sentences. Something like you ask really interesting questions or. You approach things in a very unique way or maybe something like you're great at trying things even when you're not sure how they'll turn out.

Imagine hearing that when you were 10 or 15 or really even now. Uh. I think if that had been part of the language growing up, a lot of people wouldn't be questioning whether or not they're creative the way that they do now. So many people say, oh, I'm just not creative. I don't think they would be looking for proof like they do now.

They just know because someone told them in a way that made it feel normal. Like of course you're creative. Everyone is. It just shows up differently in each person. That's the kind of things we'd be saying to kids, and that's kind of the whole point. It wouldn't be about judging someone's creative talent.

It would be about noticing how they think, how they try things, what excites them, the way they [00:06:00] solve a problem, or express an idea the way that they take something and make it their own. And if we had been taught to notice these things early on, I think more people would trust the way their mind works. I think there would be less pressure to do things, the quote unquote right way and more room to explore what feels right to you. I. And again, not because creativity needs to be tracked or measured, but because naming something is often what gives it permission to grow.

That whole thought about noticing creativity, naming it, making space for it, that led me to another thought. And that is what if everyone had a creative IE. Now, in case you don't know an education, an IEP is an individualized education plan, and it's used really to support students who learn or process things differently so that they can still thrive in the classroom.

But what if we applied that same kind of attention and [00:07:00] personalization to creativity? And this IEP could be called something like an individualized expression plan. Not because something's wrong or needs to be fixed, but because we're all wired differently and we think differently and we express ourselves differently, and most of us never got a chance to figure out how we create best because we were too busy trying to fit into whatever process was already being taught.

And so an individualized expression plan Would be a way to honor your individual creativity. And so again, what if we all had a creative IEP, something that said something like, I tend to get my best ideas when I'm not trying too hard, or I process visually, so I need to see things all laid out, or I like to talk things through.

I like to talk it out before I know what to think. Or maybe I work in bursts. I'm not the kind of person that's looking for a steady [00:08:00] kind of drip, or maybe I need to move around when I'm thinking. I'm sure you see children like that, that get labeled as hyperactive. Really? They just need movement or I don't respond well to too much structure, but if you give me a starting point.

I'm good. I can go with that. None of those are flaws. They're just creative preferences. 

Like maybe you're someone who gets your best ideas while driving or in the shower or cleaning. So trying to force ideas to come while you're staring at a blank computer screen only makes it worse. Or maybe you need to talk through an idea out loud, even if it seems very chaotic and that it doesn't make sense, but it's only then that you can actually make progress with it.

And you start to notice it in kids too. Maybe your child comes alive when they're building something with their hands, but they freeze when you ask them to write a paragraph. Or maybe your teenager, I know this with my [00:09:00] kids, can't seem to concentrate in silence, but if you give them a pair of headphones, then they're suddenly focused for hours.

That's information for you. That's creative wiring. Their creative wiring. They're not avoiding work necessarily. they just need a different way in. And the funny thing is, is most of us are already operating by some kind of creative IEP. We just haven't named it. Or we've spent years thinking our way isn't as valid, I'd say, as someone else's, just because it doesn't look like that again, quote right way.

What if you stopped trying to fit in to someone else's process and just got curious about your own? And you don't need to follow a template because you are the template. And I think this matters because when creativity is supported and not just allowed, but really supported, it really does change what people are capable of.

It changes what we're able to imagine to build, invent, reshape, [00:10:00] all of that when we're not being held inside someone else's framework. When creativity is encouraged, people just don't express more. They actually expand and they start solving problems in ways that no one's modeled for them. They think further ahead, they connect ideas that haven't been connected yet.

They create things that didn't exist before. Because they're not waiting again for a template. They're trusting what wants to come through them, and that kind of thinking doesn't come from memorization or repetition. It comes from freedom and from curiosity from being given room to try things that might not work.

The systems we built around learning, especially modern education, we're not really designed with that in mind. They were built for efficiency and order and control, but creativity doesn't work in that way. It needs space, it needs variation. It needs room to go off script. And when you zoom out, it's not just [00:11:00] personal.

I think it's actually how we evolved, right? Because before creativity became maybe a buzzword, it was really survival. It was how we survived. It was instinct, it was storytelling, design tools, shelter strategy. Creativity is the reason humans adapted. It's how we shaped our environments instead of being shaped by them.

And somewhere along the line when systems became much more structured and more standardized, we lost touch with that, and creativity became a personality trait of the artists of the world Instead of something foundational to everyone and how we live and move through the world and how we solve problems and connect with each other, but that creative capacity is still in each and every one of us.

And when it gets the space to grow, when people are supported in figuring out how they create best, and then given the freedom to act on it, it doesn't just shift how [00:12:00] they feel. It shifts what they can do, and in turn, it shapes what they are able to bring to the world. That's what's at stake and that's the part that sticks with me.

It's interesting to think about how different things might be if creativity had always been treated like something essential, something worth paying attention to. Not just when it shows up in the obvious ways, but in the way that someone thinks or connects ideas or asks questions. No one else thought to ask, and maybe the most important part isn't even how creativity is expressed, but what becomes possible.

When it's given room to grow, what we're able to imagine, what we try, what we create when no one's standing over us with a grade book or a performance review from a boss. maybe that's the kind of education that we've been missing all along. I guess that's where I'll leave it for today, and my challenge for you is to start making your [00:13:00] creativity more front and center in your life moving forward, and also to look at the people around you, including your children and or students if you have them, and make it a point to honor their creativity as well.