How many people out there would consider themselves a “Creative”? Right now, looking at what you do every day for a living, at home with family, or in the community, would you, Reader, call yourself a Creative?

I caught myself a number of months back writing a post within a group on Facebook: Hey ya’ll! Where are my Creatives at? Our team is growing!

To be a Creative, in the world of art, design, music, dance or writing is a normal label to take on. It feels good in those worlds to be known and identified as belonging to these traditionally creative communities. And in my post to promote a growing team for media and content creation work. By calling the “Creatives” I inadvertently fell into the trap of excluding everyone outside these traditionally creative fields.

I’d like to re-define how the label creative is used to be more inclusive, to allow creativity to take on meaning for people of all fields.

To be a Creative, one doesn’t need to by profession be an artist or designer. Creativity is not limited to your job title or hobbies.

A Creative is someone who thinks and acts outside the norm. Someone who inspires new ways of doing life, regardless of fields or professions. You could be in the line of fitness, business, therapy/counseling, teaching, tech, politics, law, or anything else out there and be a Creative.

I’m not going to lie I really hate that the word “creative” as having many connotations connected to specific fields, it just leaves out too many creative people in other fields.

One beautiful example of this is a fitness instructor I got super inspired by when I saw a new type of fitness-dance-drumming-cardio workout that she founded and trademarked. It’s called Drum Late and it’s a one-of-a-kind workout experience. After a couple of weeks of working out with her, I got so inspired, I asked if she could coach me to instruct Drum Late on my own. Here is a woman in a “non-creative” field of fitness, but creating a brand-new workout experience with mixed dancing and weight lifting moves to help people meet their health and fitness goals.

Then there are my teacher friends who through the entire 2020-2021 school years have needed to adapt classroom settings to be online or a mix of online and in person. There were some creative solutions for getting students to engage and be proactive while remote learning. New systems being put into place quickly and seeing big picture problem solving solutions for something they never had done before—wow! Creativity has sparkled and shone through the entire 2020 year as people and business developed and changed how they do life to make it work.

Then I have a mom-friend who came up with a pretty creative idea to teach her son potty training. By dumping a small handful of cereal in the toilet bowl, she taught him to aim for each piece and “sink the ship.” Creative! Maybe this is a trick a lot of moms know? But I don’t think so because I have seen a number of Facebook posts “Help! How do I teach my son potty training and how to aim?” This simple solution was creative for her situation and should be celebrated for working.

Creativity is not limited to position, field, or community. It lives outside all of those things. There are creative solutions in business, entrepreneurs are constantly coming up with creative ideas and products. I’d like to see the word Creative become more inclusive and applied to more people. I don’t want anyone to be limited by phrases like “Where are my creatives at?!” that I myself posted in that group. For as useful as a post it was that I wrote to get some attraction for media people, it limits and holds back everyone else. I don’t want anyone to ignore a post because they say “I’m not creative, so this isn’t for me.”

We all have the potential to be creative in any field. I mean, think of how science and medicine have been advanced through the years because of creativity being put to good use with other knowledge?

Maybe because I see people in my field calling themselves “Creatives” I’m sensitive to others being excluded. Maybe you read the post from the beginning and thought, “Yeah, I’m super creative!” And you’re in the field of counseling. Great! I’m so glad you’re ahead of this idea I’m just now writing on.

But. If anyone reading this never considered themselves creative before—would you reconsider? Let’s not limit ourselves from new thoughts and creative ideas in ANY field, profession, or role.

Fitness instructors, pastors, doctors, lawyers, parents—mom’s and dad’s— We ALL have the potential for creativity and be called Creatives. So, my last statement, really a question is simply this: What field are you in and how can you think and act more creatively in your community?