Creativity Makes Satisfied People

Published in El Pais, October 12th 2019.

Ana País, writer of the World Economic Forum, writes about the keys aspects that make people feel more satisfied with their lives. She interviewed Professor Teresa Amabile, psychologist and teacher at Harvard Business School. He starts by indicating that a person can have “life satisfaction” when you can be yourself and be creative in working hours in our careers.

The writer mentions that creativity is not necessarily good and is not limited to great discoveries. Amabile and others in research, interviewed millennials (between 20-30 years) who are starting their careers and on the other hand, interviewed people over 50 who still work full time. They found the following:

• Older people are mostly positive towards creativity and want to apply them to their lives.
• All people are generally more satisfied with their lives if they feel they have jobs that require creativity.
• The person’s satisfaction does not correlate in the same way if they are creative in their extra-work activities.
• It is in the labor source that greater satisfaction is produced using creativity and according to the research applies to all.
• Retirees feel happier with their lives if they believe they had the opportunity to be creative throughout their work.

He mentions that people feel enormous satisfaction when they solve complex problems in a creative way, when they invent a new idea, or when the road was difficult. Another reason for people to feel satisfied is to get their best skills and even develop new problem-solving skills. Working as a team encourages the creative exchange of ideas. Creativity and innovation are not encouraged because doing so runs the risk of causing fear and therefore may fail because then it is safer to keep the current state.

Creativity is a habit. It is to live and learn day by day. We must even re-educate ourselves. If we want to be creative people, have creative children. First let’s not stop learning and at least expect it, there will be an opportunity to creatively solve a problem. We must also create the relevant environments, encouraging the generation of different, unique ideas, losing the fear of failing or making a fool of ourselves, thinking that we will be judged by our surroundings. Let’s just get used to think differently. Make small changes, without fear, but with a high degree of knowledge, to minimize failure.