Creative Athletes

Creativity is a talent.

Some are born with it, some are not.

What you do with this talent is what defines you as a truly creative person.

I find sports analogies to be very useful in most situations, and to describe a person’s potential creativity one that comes to mind is “practice makes perfect.”

In many ways a creative person is like an athlete. Disregarding the obvious difference of physical activity, both are born with a natural talent, but that is only the beginning. A great amount of dedication is needed from both to succeed in their careers, and “practicing” is the differential between mediocrity and being the best.

Ideas may come to you without much effort, but developing those ideas into something useful is what really makes creatives, creatives.

Besides all the practicing, athletes go through an intense preparation before any game, which consists of regulating their diets, sleeping times, specific concentration methods … For creatives, this moment comes when presenting their ideas, in which you also have to be “on top of your game,” except it usually doesn’t include much sleeping.

Understanding that competition is always behind them keeps athletes in check, always needing to work harder to stay on top. Creatives can’t “drop the ball” either, or they can find themselves lagging behind and possible missing out on an opportunity.

In the end, if you’re not willing to put in the effort, you might as well “throw in the towel” and stop calling yourself a creative person, because just as watching ESPN does not make you an athlete, just having an idea does not make you a creative person.