How Creative Writing Can Boost Your Professional and Personal Growth Human-to-human storytelling is innately more original, valuable, and thought-provoking than the current rule-driven, formulaic approach of technology.
By Kira Jean
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Storytelling has always had an important part to play in business. The ability to craft narratives that engage audiences, build trusted relationships and establish memorable connections that drive buying decisions is a skill that can take time to hone. Hence, the arrival of generative AI is understandably a welcome resource for time-stretched professionals. However, it may also be doing a disservice – for both customers in business, and for us as individuals.
Human-to-human storytelling is innately more original, valuable, and thought-provoking than the current rule-driven, formulaic approach of technology. Creative writing, in particular, allows us to explore our imagination to unleash innovation that can promote professional growth, while providing an outlet to channel emotions that can support mental health. Here's how practicing creative writing could impact your career progress as well as your personal well being.
Finding your voice
Whether you're a multinational CEO, an entrepreneur, a teacher, or an intern starting out on your career path, you will need to tell a unique story that makes you stand out from the crowd. This starts with finding your own voice. Creative writing can help you to reflect critically on your natural expression, step outside your comfort zone to try different approaches, and build the raw materials that will ultimately enable you to craft and hone your true voice.
Communicating with confidence
Creative writing teaches the fundamentals of communication that apply in any context. Developing a story that engages an audience, building characters that are relatable, and weaving the layers that keep readers interested are also the foundations for compelling communication in a business setting. Developing these skills builds personal and professional confidence, and moreover, doing so in a creative community provides a supportive environment, outside of the result-driven business context.
Unlocking creativity and innovation
As a fast-paced business hub, the UAE has positioned itself as a leader of innovation in both technology and creativity. Businesses and employees now need to embrace this mindset simply in order to survive. Creative writing is a discipline that inspires invention, helping us to reconnect with our imagination and unlock the part of the brain that might bring forward transformational innovations in products and processes. We also need to unleash the potential of the UAE's untapped creative innovators, by nurturing raw talent in fiction writing and helping aspiring authors to realize their ambition to publish their story.
Creating balance and supporting emotional well being
Like reading, creative writing is an opportunity for quiet contemplation, away from the constant noise of every-day life. We see many senior corporate executives turn to creative writing, not only to improve their communication skills through a more reflective approach, but also to create balance in their hectic lives. Expressing inner thoughts through storytelling is also a powerful tool to support mental health and emotional well being. Articulating feelings through written word brings out those concerns we have within us and can give and a new perspective that helps to rationalize anxieties.
As innovation, critical thinking, and emotional intelligence are frequently cited as essential competencies for the future of work, creative writing can offer an alternative outlet to practice and perfect these essential skills, whilst also nurturing a calming mental state that promotes well being, and perhaps even finding a new passion in the process.
