Rise to Challenges: RsH-G7

Challenges Generate Creativity

Creativity only exists in our human psychosocial world. It emerges as part of an urge to «rise to a challenge».

Challenges do not exist out there in the socio-physical world either. There is no such thing as a «creative problem» independent of how a person experiences it. It is up to each of us to get into a mindset that turns a personally perceived opportunity or a socially-defined problem into a challenge.

So finding your challenge and then choosing to face it squarely and take it on is the crucial creative initiative from which everything else follows. The phrase "rising to the challenge" points to the use of transcendence.

Is the Challenge Real?

Many challenges proposed in management teams are not really challenges for anyone. They are instructions. Rewording the instruction-challenge from: "What new features might we add to X" to "How can we revolutionize the experience of X" changes little. Read more about creativity in organizations.

Handling a challenge is not a «been there, done that» process. Any challenge, whether it is just a difficult task or a complex project, leads to an endeavour of some sort. So it engages all 7 elements/levels in the framework of personal endeavour.

The difference from a run-of-the-mill endeavour is that the transcendence levels (RL5-RL7) must be given a greater weighting, as does the experience level (RL4) which has to mediate between transcendence and actualization—see graphic lower right.

The sense of challenge remains in existence throughout the whole creative process. There is never just one challenge, rather there is a flow of challenges. The moment that the sense of challenge dissipates, then the creative state fades away. Work starts to become routine and predictable, or even mechanical. You are then probably ready, even eager, for a new challenging endeavour.

Choosing Your Challenge

Recognizing a challenge is rather easy: it makes you excited and yet nervous. It is never obvious that you can indeed handle a challenge that seems suitable for you. The reasons vary: too much uncertainty, too many obstacles, too little support, too determined an opposition, too many factors to juggle, too few resources, &c.

So the natural reaction to a genuine challenge is fear (or anxiety) stemming from your wish to accept it and succeed triumphantly despite all difficulties. You then have two options:

• Turn away and let discretion be the better part of valour.

OR

• Rise to the challenge by evoking the necessary courage.

Responding to an evident or proffered challenge is not mandatory. You must choose your challenges carefully. But if you never rise to a challenge, then you will never discover your own potential. That would be sad, because being creative in everyday life is the route, for most, to whatever divinity resides within.

Evoking Your Courage

A challenge may well be communal—in that the challenge is open to many or involves a group or exists in an organization. However, facing a challenge is intrinsically personal, because only you can generate a courage mindset.

Courage does not remove fear: it simply enables progress despite fears. No-one can tell you what your challenge should be or even whether a relevant challenge exists. In the same way, you alone know whether you will accept and endure the fear.

Courage is the price of being creative. It is the creative force with which you engage the mindset of challenge. The path of the creative process is never smooth or predictable—and if it were?…well then it wouldn't be a challenge, and it wouldn't demand much creativity.

So courage is not a matter of the moment. It must be continually re-evoked and renewed as you work away at the challenge. Others may or may not perceive you as courageous. That does not really matter because what other people think is largely irrelevant in matters that touch on authentic choices.

Once you step up to the plate, you must be wholehearted. Evidence that this is indeed the case is usually noticeable in the positivity with which you proceed. But whether others notice is beside the point. What counts is actually being positive when you enter the unknown, and sustaining positivity in the face of setbacks, disappointments and road-blocks.

"Will" is the Source of Creativity

Creativity-RG7¹ is a manifestation of your Will-R, pure and simple. There is no extrinsic source or supply to which you can turn. It will become evident that creativity manifests in a specific way that calls for positivity.

The courage to be creative demands a deliberate activation and application of Will. So the formal name for the necessary consequence of taking up a challenge is: «Willpower».

Willpower, the source of creative energies, must be activated and applied to every unique element/Level of personal endeavour. In doing so, these levels undergo subtle shifts to make them more generative.

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• With your challenge in mind and your courage evoked, the story of creativity commences with how you use your willpower.

Originally posted: 31-Jan-2012. Amended: 22-Jun-2021.
Re-naming the heptad in November 2026.