A Guide to Creativity: Benefits, Tips, & Success Stories (2025)

No matter what you do in life and work, you practice creativity. It doesn’t just appear in traditionally artistic aspects of life—creativity is a core part of business strategies, parenting, and personal growth. Regardless, you might wish you could be more creative.

At Shortform, we cover loads of books that talk about creativity—either in depth or in specific contexts such as business, art, and mental health. We’ve brought together the best ideas in this comprehensive guide to creativity and its connected articles. Continue reading for insights from several best-selling books, including Big Magic by Elizabeth Gilbert, The Creative Act by Rick Rubin, and Steal Like an Artist by Austin Kleon.

What Is Creativity?
- Where Does Creativity Come From?
The Benefits of Creativity
How to Be More Creative
Creativity in Business and Sales
- Building a Creative Workplace
Success Stories of Creative Minds
Best Books on Creativity
Conclusion
FAQ

What Is Creativity?

You’ve probably wondered what creativity is at some point, perhaps when watching a child build imaginary worlds or seeing an artist create something breathtaking from nothing. Creativity is the act of producing new ideas, theories, works, and solutions to problems. It’s been the driving force of innovation since the beginning of time, and, without it, humanity wouldn’t be at the advanced stage it is today.

You don’t have to be artistic or naturally gifted to be considered creative. It’s a complex dance between your brain chemistry, emotional experiences, and learned skills. Your dopamine levels play a crucial role in creative thinking, driving the reward-seeking behavior that fuels innovative ideas.

Where Does Creativity Come From?

Creativity often emerges from unexpected places, such as difficult experiences and sensitivity to the world around you. Researchers have been studying the true relationship between suffering and creativity for decades. Suffering for art was the center of a creative and philosophical movement called German Romanticism. In modern day, this concept is associated with the trope known as the “tortured artist.” Sensitive people often possess greater creative abilities because their heightened awareness allows them to:

Process emotions and experiences more intensely
Notice subtle details others might miss
Connect seemingly unrelated concepts in novel ways

But author and journalist Elizabeth Gilbert maintains that suffering isn’t necessary for art, and that the tortured artist syndrome is actually a harmful trope in the creative community. In fact, she claims that suffering is an obstacle in artistic pursuits. Whether that’s true or not is still up for debate, as the creative process isn’t one size fits all.

Adults may struggle to find a spark of creativity because they’re more aware of their suffering and sensitivity to the world, but it’s different for children. Young minds naturally demonstrate creativity because they don’t have to filter their imagination through adult logic and self-doubt. Acknowledging that creativity is both an innate capacity and a learned skill makes it easier to reclaim that childlike creative freedom. After all, Gilbert suggests that creativity is within you and hidden from your view. Your job is to just consistently show up and create conditions for inspiration to happen.

Your brain operates like a sophisticated pattern-recognition system, constantly working to synthesize information and generate new ideas. Yet, the internal sources of creativity in the mind remain unknown. That’s why people often look to outside inspiration. One such external source is known as the “muse.” This is an age-old concept that represents a person—often a woman—who acts as creative inspiration for an artist. Other people consider it a mythical force or pure talent that makes creative solutions appear seemingly out of nowhere. Either way, creativity is everywhere—both within and outside.

Explore more about the meaning and origins of creativity in detail with these Shortform articles:

The Benefits of Creativity

You’ve already learned what creativity is and where it can come from. Now let’s dive into why nurturing your creative side matters for your overall well-being and personal growth. The benefits of creativity extend far beyond artistic expression, affecting every aspect of your life in surprising ways.

Benefit #1: Enhanced Problem-Solving Skills

Creative thinking trains your brain to approach challenges from multiple angles. Whether you’re in a personal or professional situation, that mental flexibility can help you find innovative solutions. This cognitive agility becomes a valuable asset when life gets messy and complex.

Benefit #2: Emotional Resilience and Reduced Stress

Creativity serves as an outlet for processing difficult emotions and experiences. This is especially true for believers of transforming pain into something meaningful. By engaging in creative activities, you can build emotional strength and develop healthy coping mechanisms.

Also, having a creative mind naturally shifts your brain into a flow state, similar to meditation. Your cortisol levels drop while you focus on the present moment. A mental break from daily stressors provides therapeutic benefits for your nervous system.

Benefit #3: Enhanced Connection With Others

Creativity bridges gaps between people through shared experiences and universal emotions. Your creative work can touch others in profound ways, creating meaningful connections and fostering empathy.

Benefit #4: Improved Self-Discovery and Greater Confidence

Through creative expression, you can discover things about yourself that you never knew existed. Each creative project reveals preferences, values, and perspectives you might not have recognized otherwise. This self-awareness strengthens your sense of identity and purpose.

Tapping into your creative side also helps you grow more comfortable with vulnerability and taking risks. Every time you create something and share it, you build courage. This bravery spills over into other areas of your life, helping you pursue goals and relationships.

Explore more about the benefits of creativity in detail with these Shortform articles:

How to Be More Creative

Being more creative doesn’t require waiting for inspiration to strike out of nowhere. You can cultivate creativity with these five tips that remove barriers and create environments for innovative thinking.

Tip #1: Create Physical and Mental Space

Your environment directly impacts creative output. Designate a specific area for creative work, even if it’s just a corner of a room. Your brain needs space to produce something great, so clear physical clutter to reduce mental distractions. Also, schedule uninterrupted time blocks where devices stay off and external demands wait.

Tip #2: Embrace Strategic ‘Stealing‘

Nothing gets created in a vacuum. Study artists, writers, and innovators you admire. Analyze their techniques and combine elements in your own unique way. This isn’t copying—it’s learning the building blocks of excellence. Finally, keep a collection of inspiring work to reference when you need creative fuel.

Tip #3: Practice Mindfulness

Mindfulness enhances creativity by training attention and reducing mental chatter. Regular meditation helps you notice subtle details and make novel connections. Also, stay present during creative activities instead of focusing on output. This awareness allows unexpected insights to emerge.

Tip #4: Connect Creativity to Something Greater

Tap into spiritual or transcendent aspects of creativity. Whether through nature, meditation, or personal beliefs, connecting to something beyond yourself provides deeper motivation and inspiration. This connection can unlock creative breakthroughs that purely technical approaches can’t achieve.

Tip #5: Maintain Consistent Creative Habits

Lastly, show up regularly to your designated creativity sessions, regardless of how you feel. Set small, achievable goals that build momentum over time. Consistency matters more than intensity. Your creative muscles strengthen through regular exercise, not sporadic bursts of activity.

Explore more about enhancing creativity in detail with these Shortform articles:

Creativity in Business and Sales

You might think creativity belongs solely in art studios, but modern businesses make use of it in every department. Creativity and business mostly intersect in sales environments, where traditional pitches fail to thrive against innovative approaches.

Smart salespeople now use storytelling to emotionally connect with clients by turning dry products into compelling narratives. This specific technique involves asking unexpected questions to reveal customers’ needs, and creating memorable experiences that competitors can’t replicate. Additionally, they use visual tools, interactive demonstrations, and personalized solutions that make buying decisions feel natural. Customer interaction shouldn’t be treated like a rigid script. The most successful sales teams treat each encounter with a consumer as an opportunity for creative problem-solving.

Building a Creative Workplace

A workplace’s culture determines whether creativity thrives or dies on the vine. Organizations that embrace creative thinking create psychological safety where employees feel comfortable sharing unconventional ideas. They implement questionstorming sessions—dedicated brainstorming periods focused entirely on generating questions rather than immediate solutions. These sessions uncover blind spots and challenge assumptions that keep companies stuck in outdated patterns.

Creative workplaces also encourage cross-departmental collaboration. Breakthrough innovations often emerge when different perspectives collide. To stimulate creative teamwork, managers should ask business questions that push teams beyond surface-level thinking:

What would we do if our biggest constraint disappeared overnight?
How might our competitors’ weaknesses become our greatest opportunities?
What customer problems are we not even seeing yet?

Building a truly creative organization requires more than just motivational posters and ping-pong tables. You need leadership that models risk-taking and reframes failures as learning opportunities. Time and budget should be allocated for experimental projects that might not have immediate payoffs, but inch toward future success. And it’s not just leaders in executive boardrooms that creative companies prioritize. Good ideas can emerge from any level, but only if companies flatten hierarchies.

Explore more about creativity and business in detail with these Shortform articles:

Success Stories of Creative Minds

You’ve learned about creativity’s origins, benefits, and business applications. But what about the real people who turned their innovative thinking into lasting legacies? These stories reveal creative patterns and strategies you can apply to your own creative journey.

Disney and Pixar

Walt Disney revolutionized entertainment by combining technological innovation with emotional storytelling. From Steamboat Willie to Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, Disney’s work pioneered synchronized sound in animation and introduced the multiplane camera. Thanks to his creativity that nobody else could see, animated films had the same depth as live-action movies. In addition, Disney’s theme park concept transformed entertainment venues into immersive experiences where visitors become part of the story.

Pixar later built upon Disney’s foundation with its own creative process that combines computer animation and character-driven narratives. Their breakthrough came from understanding that technology serves the story, not the other way around. To this day, Pixar’s collaborative culture encourages directors to challenge ideas, resulting in films that resonate across generations. Both companies demonstrate how creative success depends on balancing artistic vision with technical excellence.

Steve Jobs and Apple

The co-founder of Apple, Steve Jobs, transformed multiple industries with his creative thinking. He obsessed over user experience details that competitors ignored, like the satisfying click of a button or the weight of a device in your hand. His approach to creativity and innovation also showed the elegance of a minimalist aesthetic.

Jobs understood that breakthrough products emerge from merging different fields—technology, liberal arts, and human behavior. His background in calligraphy later came in handy when designing typography in personal computers. Product launches for the iPhone and iPod became theatrical experiences that built emotional connections before customers even touched the devices.

Leonardo da Vinci

Centuries ago, Leonardo da Vinci embodied interdisciplinary thinking to create his art. The polymath’s background in anatomy helped improve his paintings, and he used artistic skills to solve engineering problems. Perhaps his most famous painting, Mona Lisa, was more than just an illustration of a woman; it was a culmination of optics, human emotion, and nature.

Inspiration for him was everywhere—from water flow patterns to hair curls to architectural spirals. His creative process involved questioning the norm and experimentation rather than practical applications. This led to inventions centuries ahead of his time.

Explore more about these creativity success stories in detail with these Shortform articles:

Best Books on Creativity

The Shortform library has quite a few guides to books on creativity. They break down the psychology behind creativity and offer ways to create and share your work confidently with the world.

Creativity, Inc. by Ed Catmull
Creative Quest by Questlove
Wired to Create by Scott Barry Kaufman and Carolyn Gregoire
The War of Art by Steven Pressfield
The Artist’s Way by Julia Cameron
Show Your Work! by Austin Kleon
Conscious Creativity by Philippa Stanton
The Genius Zone by Gay Hendricks
Decoding Greatness by Ron Friedman
The Creative Cure by Jacob Nordby
The LEGO Story by Jens Andersen

Conclusion

Thank you for checking out our guide to creativity. We hope you found what you’re looking for in this article and the connected articles. We’ll continue to add to this page as the content in the Shortform library grows, so check back for updates in the future!

FAQ

What is creativity?

Creativity is the ability to generate new ideas, solutions, or expressions by combining imagination, experiences, and learned skills.

Is creativity only for artists?

Creativity is not only for art. Creativity shows up in business, problem-solving, parenting, science, and everyday life.

Can creativity be learned?

Creativity can be a learned skill. While everyone has natural creative potential, consistent practice, curiosity, and new experiences strengthen it.

Why do creative blocks happen?

Creative blocks are often caused by fear, perfectionism, or stress. Creating space, practicing mindfulness, and building habits can help overcome them.

Does suffering make people more creative?

While suffering can fuel creativity to some people, many experts argue that it actually hinders the creative process more than it helps.

How can I improve my creativity daily?

To make yourself more creative, save time for consistent practice, study other people’s work for inspiration, clear mental space, and stay open to new perspectives.