Thoughts on Excellence Free E-Newsletter Series
Volume 22, Issue No. 10b
June 15, 2024
By Dan Coughlin
In MWD (Merriam-Webster Dictionary), creativity is defined as the ability to bring into existence.
Creativity is connected to your imagination, but they are two separate parts of your essence.
When you imagine, you visualize something that does not exist. Then you can feed that visualization with more thoughts, emotions, and will so that it becomes clearer and more meaningful to you.
When you create, you bring that imagined future that connects to your essence into a reality.
While a person can create a painting, a product, or a building, we are focusing in this series of articles on your essence: your thoughts, emotions, and will. Therefore, the focus of creativity in this article is on what you can create within yourself. Remember, creativity is the ability to bring something into existence.
Consider a person who consistently judges other people negatively and criticizes them to their face and behind their back. This person wants a healthier essence and imagines a future that does not include negatively judging other people. The focus shifts from imagination to creativity.
This person decides to create a new habit. The person’s will is now directed toward only seeing the positives in other people. Whenever he starts to judge another person negatively, he reminds himself that every person does what he or she thinks is the right thing to do and does it in the way that he or she thinks is the right way to do it. Over and over and over this person quickly moves away from negatively judging people to positively accepting them. He might disagree with the person. He might argue with the person. But he no longer negatively judges and criticizes the person because he realizes this would be negatively judging another person’s virtues, what he or she thinks is the right thing to think, say, and do.
Over time, a part of the person’s essence has been created. A new habit has been brought into existence. It is very important that you decide what you want to create within your essence and that it connects with your sense of virtue. Otherwise, without realizing it, your egotism can steadily create new habits within you.
This act of creating within your essence really does require you to slow down, step off the train of constant busyness, discern what you want to create within your essence, and then to repeatedly focus on establishing this within yourself.
Essential Walk Questions for You to Consider
- What is a thought, an emotion, or a direction for yourself that you want to bring into existence, and why do you want that?
- How can you sustain this focus and bring it into existence on an on-going basis?
Republishing Articles
My newsletters, Thoughts on Excellence, have been republished in approximately 40 trade magazines, on-line publications, and internal publications for businesses, universities, and not-for-profit organizations over the past 20+ years. If you would like to republish all or part of my monthly articles, please send me an e-mail at dan@thecoughlincompany.com with the name of the article you want in the subject heading. I will send you the article in a word document.