How to claim back your inherent capacity to innovate, decorate and transform.

Your creative potential is the key to your wellbeing and to your happiness. Never let anyone take that away from you.

We live in a world where the call to "be creative" has become a byword for everything from throwing paint at a canvas to finding a way to stretch a budget to achieve a seemingly impossible task in the workplace.

This is because creativity is the use of imagination to create something or to express an idea. Using the imagination is so integral to our perception and thought processes that we cannot avoid it, it is simply a part of the way our brains and hearts process information.

However, for many societal reasons, for many people creativity is considered to be the realm of the talented and gifted artist, of the persistent perfectionist or of the deluded time waster.

The idea that you are actually creative on a daily basis regardless of whether you call it creativity may take you off guard but from a psychological point of view you are, because creativity, and engaging your imagination is essential to your daily information processing.

Notice your inner artist

Your inner artist is always with you. Your inner artist emerges as you choose your outfit, as you admire a flower, as you notice beauty, symmetry or a scene that evokes a strong emotion or sense of knowing due to it's symbolism of the larger human condition.

Your inner artist edits your documents at work, tastes the food as you cook and adds the right flavour, doodles absentmindedly, sings along with a favourite song and takes time choosing the wrapping for a special gift.

Your inner artist imagines (sometimes rightly, sometimes wrongly) someone else's point of view. Your inner artist is with you always because your inner artist is you.

The point of embracing your existent creativity; even if you don't consider yourself to be talented; is to begin to allow yourself to truly embrace, notice and enjoy the constant moments throughout your day that you inner artist emerges and seeks to appreciate or add meaning to your world.

When you deny your creativity and take it for granted you miss out on one of the great joys of being human - that creative endeavours are not simply a means to an end but are also an end in themselves.

Once you start to notice your inherent creativity and enjoy it you may also begin to give yourself permission to take it more seriously and commit to the goal you thought long gone, of learning a musical instrument, starting a drawing course or learning to cook a new cuisine. It is never too late to nurture your creativity and with it your self esteem, happiness and sense of wonder.