In today’s fast-changing retail world, it’s critical for leaders to be creative. In fact, some would argue that the most important leadership quality for success in business today is creativity. Without creative thinking, organizations can miss out on breakthrough ideas that can become innovations. With this in mind, we’ve reached out to Shari Rudolph, chief marketing officer of Good360, a nonprofit that works with companies to make the business of giving simpler, and an expert in creativity and idea generation, to write a three-part series for us about creativity. Part one focuses on why creativity is an important trait for business leaders to have; part two will debunk the myths around creativity; and part three will offer strategies to overcome barriers to creativity. We hope you enjoy this series, and please let us know your thoughts on creativity. We’d love to hear them!

Creativity is highly valued within our society, but isn’t always well understood. Conventional wisdom suggests that creativity is a mysterious force that remains exclusive to the realm of accomplished writers, musicians and artists — and is unreachable for the rest of us.

The truth is that we’re ALL creative. Perhaps it’s just a matter of how we define creativity. The abilities to challenge assumptions and shift our perspectives are important tools in unleashing our individual creativity. Therefore, let’s start by reframing creativity itself. We all do creative acts every single day, but we don’t often recognize them as such. We come up with both quick creative fixes on the fly (e.g., using a sugar packet to stabilize a wobbly café table) and those that require a bit more consideration (e.g., how to adjust a recipe when you’re missing an ingredient). We do this so often that we don’t think of it as creative problem solving, but it is.

Your creative nature is there; it’s just buried. You used to tap into it all the time. Close your eyes for a moment. Think back to being five or six years old when you could lose yourself in the magic of your imagination. An empty box became a fort, a doll’s house, a spaceship, a time machine, etc. When’s the last time you turned anything into a time machine?

Hallmark greeting cards creative legend Gordon McKenzie used to speak at schools regularly, and famously recounts that whenever he asked a room of kindergarten kids “Are there any artists here?,” 100 percent of the hands went up. By the sixth grade, however, that same question elicited only two or three raised hands. (And those kids usually darted nervous glances around the room, worried that others would think them weird.)

So what happens? We’re open, imaginative and nonjudgmental as children, and we freely exhibit both our innate creative ability as well as an unwavering confidence in that ability. As we get older, our own voice of judgment and the comments and reactions from teachers, parents, friends and others begin to chip away at that confidence and we start to second-guess our creative ability. By the time we’re adults, we’ve learned to be serious, deliberate and often look for just one right answer to a problem. What’s worse is that we believe that if we’re truly “productive,” we don’t have time for so-called frivolous activities like brainstorming, daydreaming, exploring and experimenting.

Let’s challenge another assumption that Jan. 1 is the only time for making resolutions. We can, of course, make resolutions at any time, but let’s think of September as New Year’s 2.0. It’s a time of new beginnings in its own right — back to school, back to work, and buckling down for the fast-approaching fourth quarter.

Make a resolution to develop an awareness of your innate creative abilities and to do both big and small things to exercise those muscles. Start with these three easy and fun exercises that you can do any time (and you can do them over and over):

1. Track your creative acts. List at least three things you did in the last day that were creative in nature. It could be anything from making a breakthrough on a work project to figuring out a new way to get to the office to exploring a new part of your neighborhood and anything in between. Jot these items down and try to build the habit of noting creative acts as you think of them. This conscious awareness will begin to rebuild your creative confidence as you record numerous tangible examples.

2. Create a six-word memoir. First introduced by online magazine Smith, the notion of a six-word memoir opens up our creative thinking to be able to summarize big thoughts and concepts in only six words. Creativity thrives on constraints, and summing up your self-view in a half-dozen words is an excellent exercise in constraint and conciseness.

3. From “but” to “and” … so what? It’s only three letters, but it’s a powerful example of how shifting perspectives can open up a whole new world. Consider this statement: “I’d like to work out more but my schedule is too busy.” The word “but” closes down your thinking. It leads to an excuse and doesn’t encourage you to think of alternatives and solutions. If you change the statement to “I’d like to work out more and my schedule is too busy,” the natural response is “so what?” This now opens you up to generate actual solutions like “so, I have to get up one hour earlier to go for a run.”

Shari Rudolph is an accomplished entrepreneur and retail, digital commerce and media executive with a strong track record of building audience, revenue and brands. She’s currently chief marketing officer for Good360, a leader in purposeful giving and product philanthropy. Good360 connects companies that have product to donate with nonprofits to fulfill their local community missions. She also teaches and consults in the arena of creativity and idea generation.