Possible Agentic Mechanisms to Reformulating One’s Creative Identity as a Professional Creator
Did you know that there is a connection between the way you understand your creativity and your career choices – big and small decisions?
Good news!
On the 30th of September 2024, The Possibility Studies & Society Journal published Oana Velcu-Laitinen’s article, “Possible Agentic Mechanisms to Reformulating One’s Creative Identity as a Professional Creator”.
Aside from the researchers interested in the development of creativity throughout one’s life, who else is this article good news for?
How about you? For you, this paper brings two pieces of good news. First, this paper describes that there’s more than one way to be creative. It actually discovers four possible ways to relate to your creativity and recognize it in your professional life. Second, when you see your creativity in a new light, there is an increased likelihood that you’ll get motivated to make some changes in your career for enhanced recognition and meaning at work.
Who are the professional creators?
The paper focuses on professional creators, individuals who work in science, technical, entrepreneurial, or other expert roles and who are ready to bring their energy and creative thinking to improve or innovate their organizations or work communities.
Are you a professional creator? An established or an aspiring one?
What is a creative identity?
‘Identity is viewed as an aspect of the self and the collection of physical and psychological qualities that differentiate an individual from others, give a sense of continuity and can be discovered (Dollinger & Dollinger, 2017). Identity can be best described by the question, “Who am I?” ‘, writes Oana in her paper.
In the same way we have a national identity or work identity, we have a personal creative identity, which is the inner sense of possessing creative qualities and thinking which make us unique individuals who can design our lives accordingly.
Key Findings and Possible Ways to Apply Them in The Everyday
Based on the interviews with five entrepreneurs, two scientists and one technical expert, the paper sheds light on the four ways an individual can see themselves as a creative being: as a person who has an artistic skill, as a person who has a passion for a domain of knowledge or experience, as a creative thinker and as a resourceful person.
Each of these four ways to be creative can be part of one’s creative identity and can become salient in unexpected circumstances throughout one’s career.
Let’s take as an example a fictional person, Jeanette, who works as, say, a digital marketing consultant. How might the four sides of Jeanette’s creative identity manifest?
- Scenario 1
Jeanette meets for the first time a possible client. Assuming she sees creativity as an artistic skill, like mixing music, she can choose to incorporate some of her original mixes in the presentation for the client to allow them a brief experience of her distinctive competencies.
- Scenario 2
Jeanette has a passion for making brands relatable to end consumers. When your creativity is
a passion for a domain of knowledge, this passion drives you to see ideas that others don’t
notice, you may want to go ahead and experiment with some of these ideas. Jeannette may
leave any possible hesitations aside and start writing a nonfiction book where she breaks
down her insights into customer-centric promotion.
- Scenario 3
When Jeanette sees her creativity as a way of thinking, such as an abundant imagination, she will be challenging others with assumptions-breaking questions whenever they are faced with novel and unexpected work tasks.
- Scenario 4
Presuming Jeanette sees her creativity as a way to be resourceful, she will take actions outside her and others’ comfort zones. The outcome will be identifying new opportunities to reach clients (i.e., emerging digital technologies), maintain relationships and find unexpected projects.
In sum, creative identity is your way of positioning yourself as a unique individual who makes an impact through your work. You may see yourself as a person who has artistic ability. You may see yourself as the person who has passion. You may derive your strength from your creative thinking. Fourth and last, you may see yourself as the one who keeps finding ways around obstacles in the professional sphere.
Depending on which of these four sides of creativity speak to you in a specific circumstance, deliberately acting on it can result in the development of a meaningful career as the professional who likes to tinker, improve, create or innovate.
What does the agentic mechanism mean?
Agentic mechanism is the sense of having a choice in the way you shape your environment to evolve. It consists of the series of actions that you are willing to take so you can walk away from a less desirable situation. The paper draws on interviews with professional creators which bring light on another reason to act on one’s creative identity: when the current work is no longer reflecting the way you aspire your work meaning to be. For some, work is a career. For others, it is a cause. For some others, it is a calling.
You see your work as a career when you aspire to be promoted to positions of power in an organization. Work is a cause when you expect it to have a positive impact on a community of people you want to uplift. When work is about exercising everyday skills that are at the core of who you are, you don’t have a job, you have a calling.
These three alternative ways to see the meaning of work combined with a salient side of your creativity can be motivating factors in taking new steps of professional growth or change.
Curious to hear more?
To read the possible pathways of development, kindly read the paper, “Possible Agentic Mechanisms to Reformulating One’s Creative Identity as a Professional Creator”.
If you have any comments or questions, please reach out to Oana at oana.velcu-laitinen@uef.fi