Evaluating Your Creativity: The Creative Process

What if the real reason you feel stuck… isn’t a lack of ideas — but a lack of process?

In this episode, we dive deep into Pillar 3 of The School of Creativity and Innovation’s Creative Audit: The Creative Process — the engine that turns imagination into momentum and momentum into impact.

Most professionals don’t struggle with creativity because they’re “not creative.” They struggle because they don’t have a repeatable way to move from spark to solution. Inspiration comes and goes. Deadlines don’t. And without structure, even great ideas stall.

Pillar 3 is where creativity stops being mystical… and starts becoming mechanical.

At its core, the Creative Process is about understanding how you generate ideas, how you evaluate them, how you respond when they fail, and how you iterate your way forward. It asks powerful questions:

• Do you jump to the first answer — or explore multiple possibilities?

• Do you overthink — or take small experimental action?

• When something doesn’t work, do you shut down — or refine and try again?

In this episode, we unpack the science behind creative flow. Research shows creativity is not a lightning strike — it’s a dynamic dance between two modes of thinking: divergent thinking (generating many possibilities) and convergent thinking (selecting and refining the best ones). The magic happens when you learn to switch intentionally between the two.

Pillar 3 trains that switch.

You’ll explore tools like rapid Divergent Sprints to expand your idea pool, scenario-based reframing to challenge assumptions, and the signature TRYcycle method — Curiosity, Play, Action — an iterative loop designed to build momentum through small experiments.

Instead of waiting for perfect clarity, you take a tiny step.
Instead of fearing failure, you treat it as data.
Instead of over-planning, you prototype.

That shift changes everything.

Because the Creative Process isn’t about getting it right the first time. It’s about creating forward motion.

This pillar also confronts one of the biggest hidden barriers in professional environments: perfectionism disguised as professionalism. Many talented people stall because they equate creativity with flawless execution. But innovation thrives in iteration. The organizations that move fastest are not those who avoid mistakes — they are those who test, learn, and adapt quickly.

Through immersive exercises, you begin mapping your own creative workflow:

Where do you generate best — in solitude or collaboration?
Do constraints energize you or shut you down?
What rituals help you enter flow?
What habits break it?

You’ll learn that creative process is personal — but it can also be engineered.

In the workplace, Pillar 3 becomes a competitive advantage. Teams that understand how to separate idea generation from evaluation make better decisions. Leaders who normalize iteration build cultures of innovation. HR professionals who design safe testing environments unlock employee creativity at scale.

And on a personal level, this pillar builds creative confidence.

Because when you have a process, you don’t fear the blank page.
You don’t fear the uncertain project.
You don’t fear the unknown.

You trust that you can navigate it.

By the end of this episode, you’ll see that creativity isn’t about waiting for inspiration. It’s about designing systems that produce it. It’s about building habits that turn ambiguity into opportunity. It’s about understanding that momentum — not magic — drives innovation.

Pillar 3 is where creativity becomes sustainable.

Where ideas stop living in notebooks and start living in the world.

And where you stop asking, “Am I creative?”
And start asking, “What will I build next?”