We are often inundated by fear. Fear is doled out by politicians to influence people. Advertisers peddle fear to keep people buying their products and services. Some media outlets lead with it to build audiences and sell more ad space. Doomsayers, prognosticators, and conspiracy theorists spread it to gather followers and create audiences for their products and services.
Every day in the media we are exposed to negative news and scary stories that make us anxious or worse including:
Political Fear: government corruption, political division, civil unrest, political violence.
War Fear: nuclear war, biological war, EMP attack (electromagnetic pulse), terrorism, WWIII.
Health Fear: disease, injury, inadequate healthcare, poor access to healthcare, high costs.
Financial Fear: economic collapse, inflation, recession, stock market crash, high-interest rates.
Environmental Fear: air and water pollution, earthquakes, floods, hurricanes, droughts, wildfires.
Employment Fear: layoffs, job loss to automation, not having enough money to pay bills, debt.
Crime Fear: scams, identity theft, home invasion, mugging, carjacking, mass shooting.
The simplest solution is to tune out the fear by turning off your TV and avoiding the news. When you can’t avoid negative news, creativity can help you deal with fear. When you develop your creative thinking skills you may begin to see things in different ways including new paths away from that which is scaring you.
There are six keys to developing your creativity. Each of them is necessary in order to solve problems and generate new ideas. Maybe you will create a new plan to end corruption, a new technique to clean the environment, a new method for increasing prosperity, or a new strategy to keep people safe. Some of these keys are skills while others are habits, but all of them contribute to a creative mind.
6 Keys to Creativity
1. Using curiosity creatively is when your inquisitiveness guides you to look for new connections or when you combine two or more existing concepts into a new idea. Curiosity is wondering what a different world might look like and then thinking about how you might achieve it. Perhaps it’s a world that doesn’t have so many alarming issues in it; where people unite in peaceful consensual exchange instead of engaging in force or fraud.
2. Questioning authority is all about challenging the status quo. Critical thinking is one of the first steps in creativity because it encourages you to question the way things are done. You might ask questions like: “Why do we do things this way?” “Wouldn’t it be better if we tried doing it another way?” Creativity develops your critical thinking skills, so you are less likely to be troubled and bamboozled by charlatans.
3. Trying new things such as exposing yourself to new experiences and different viewpoints. By opening your mind to new stimuli, you literally lay down new neural pathways in your brain. It’s called neuroplasticity, and when you learn or experience something new you create new connections between brain cells and open new channels of thought. Then, when you are confronted by problems (scary or not), you have that extra brainpower and data ready to assist you.
4. Taking risks along with a willingness to break rules can reveal less daunting or more positive probabilities. The people on Maui who were willing to break the rules and drive around the police roadblocks survived the 2023 fire. There is an old proverb that says, “No risk — no reward.” It’s true; the biggest risk is never taking one, because without risk you won’t find alternative options and opportunities.
5. Getting a different perspective by learning to look at things in different ways will enable you to see new ways of doing things. It can take some practice to develop a habit of viewing things from a different perspective. However, until you do, there are dozens of techniques for stimulating it artificially. My favorite is to identify a problem and then ask, “What would I do if the opposite were true?” By changing the paradigm, you abandon old assumptions and methodologies, which then forces you to consider new models and frameworks.
6. Using imagination is the heart of creativity. It is natural to imagine that something can be nicer, faster, stronger, cleaner, tastier, and safer. Imagination enables us to create a better world to live in (or help us solve the problems we are dealing with). It’s also a great way to stop worrying and overcome fear. The trick is to replace negative thinking with positive thinking. Visualize a better outcome and focus on it daily (meditate on it or daydream about it) and then observe what your creative mind does with it.
Developing these skills and habits can liberate you from fear because they empower you to do more and be more.
Creativity Helps You Recognize Alternatives
I’ve noticed lately that news stories of food shortages and other products becoming unavailable have been making people nervous and causing some to start hoarding. Creativity is the best cure for fear of scarcity. Your ingenuity helps you see alternatives. There are always substitutes available if you are open-minded. When you engage your creative brain and look for other options you will be amazed at how resourceful you can be and what you will discover.
I have found that the excitement of getting into the creative process, in and of itself, tends to erase fear. Change doesn’t seem so scary when you realize that it is enhancing your adaptability skills which are extremely important in the digital age. Embracing creativity makes you more mindful; it enables you to live in the present and focus on what you can do right now so that you don’t freak out about the future.
Creativity Builds Self-Confidence
Finally, when you begin to successfully use your creative thinking skills, it will increase your self-confidence. You will know that when a difficult or frightening situation occurs, you will be able to handle it.
References
2023 Chapman University Survey of American Fears https://www.chapman.edu/wilkinson/research-centers/babbie-center/survey…
How Novel Activities Support Neuroplasticity:
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