And you'll unleash far more creativity by simply adjusting how you "thinkabout" creativity.

The "Sides" of Creativity

On an artistic level creativity is the search for the elusive "Ah ha" -a brief moment of insight when we suddenly see a problem, or an idea, in anentirely new and fresh way.

It's true that not everyone can be Beethoven or Picasso or Einstein. But theimpulse to breakthrough to a new idea is not limited to artists andgeniuses. We each have our own natural creative genius.

On the "everyday" level creativity is actually at the heart of anyaction that somehow transforms your inner or outer reality. You are actuallybeing "creative" when you open the refrigerator door and search for the"makings" of a sandwich.

Why Do So Few People "Feel Creative"

Why do so few people manage to consider themselves "creative?" It's becausemost of us were taught to repress our natural desire to challenge the"reality" of things as they are.

Professor Mark Runco, founder of the Creativity Research Journal explains itlike this: "We put children in groups and make them sit in desks and raisetheir hands before they talk. We put all the emphasis on conformity andorder, then we wonder why they aren't being spontaneous and creative!"

Sound painfully familiar?

Overturning the "Genius" Myth Another reason many do not consider themselvescreative is the "I'm not a genius" syndrome.

David Perkins, co-director of Project Zero at the Harvard Graduate School ofEducation agrees. Perkins believes we don't believe ourselves to be creativebecause we're often intimidated by the "genius myth."

This old myth claims creativity is restricted to high IQ "geniuses." Butthis was actually debunked years ago in a study begun by Stanfordpsychologist Lewis Terman - the man who adapted the original French IQ testfor the USA.

In the early 1920s Terman had California school-teachers select 1,528"genius" schoolchildren with an IQ above 135. These children's lives werethen followed by a research team for 60 years.

After six decades the researchers found that these geniuses had done fairlywell. Many were professionals and had stable, prosperous lives. Butinterestingly ... very few had made notable creative contributions tosociety, and literally none had completed any extraordinary creative work.

According to Dr. Dean Simonton, author of Genius, Creativity and Leadershipand Scientific Genius: "There just isn't any correlation between creativityand IQ."

Unleash Your Creative Impulses

To free your natural creative impulses it's often necessary to resist thepressure to "march in step" with the rest of the world.

This can be admittedly tough.

One place to start is by trying an original way of doing some habitual task.Virtually everything you do can be done in a slightly different, slightlybetter way ... from organizing your paperwork, to washing the dishes.

And remember, the essence of creativity is NOT necessarily getting things"right." At it's heart, creativity is based on risk taking. On being willingto make some "mistakes."

And here's a point about mistakes and failure: Many who claim they aren'tcreative say this simply because they tried once, and failed.

But interestingly, creative genius may actually go hand-in-hand withfailure.

Consider the great creative genius Edison. He held over 1,000 patents. Butmost of them are forgotten, because they weren't worth much to begin with. So don't let "fear of failure" stop you from exercising and building yourcreative muscles.