We live in a world obsessed with volume. The effort we make in our careers or in our business leads to always wanting more. We’re in a constant cycle of more. We are told this cycle is good. Productivity, efficiency and predictability are what we crave so that we can get more.  

But more of what? Who knows?

A relic of the analytical mindset that champions only what it can touch and feel, volume and the pursuit of more is something we constantly seek and desire because we feel it is tangible. We feel it is real. We crave its multitude. However, the endless worship of the analytical and quantification takes us away from creativity in any real sense. While we are on an endless search for more and more, the casualty is any meaningful development of a Creator Mindset.

This quest for volume and quantity clouds our vision when we try to think creatively. So instead, to become more creative in all that we do, we need to shift our focus away from quantity and onto quality. The quality of what we are doing is far more important than the quantity of what we are doing. Quality is the only scalable product that will ensure a Creator Mindset, no matter what you do. Because if you scale quantity, you end up making a lot of nothing. But scaling quality is a sure way to embrace creativity in your career or business.  

So I set up a few quick gut checks to help you recognize when your hunt for quantity and volume overshadows your drive for quality. Here are a couple of questions to ask yourself, no matter what your career or business is, to ensure that a Creator Mindset blooms:

• Why am I doing this?

So much of our time and energy is spent producing volume that the reason we produce it in the first place is outside the realm of our understanding. We are just “doing.” The “why” is essential because without the why, we are just doing for doing’s sake. There has got to be a reason in the first place about why we are doing what we are doing. And that reason will unlock the creativity we have traded for blind repetition. Stop for a moment and ask yourself why: For example, why do I own this landscape business? Is it to trim trees and hedge bushes? Or is it to mow lawns? I doubt it. I am certain that there is a far greater reason you are doing what you are doing than the activity of your labor. It is the magic that drew you to that profession in the first place. You need to rediscover the reason. And that reason will yield quality to your approach. You just need to remember enough of what got you there in the first place to uncover it. Sometimes, what we are doing has lost its purpose, and it simply becomes a multiplication of all that has come before it. Without creativity. And so within the reasons for the “why” of what you are doing, you will find a Creator Mindset and a renewed focus on quality.

• What am I doing?

Are you stuck in endless meetings all day that seem to go nowhere? I know I certainly feel that way from time to time. Are you focused too much on the details of the day-to-day that you have lost touch with the meaning of your work? Or does the pursuit of volume and quantity overwhelm you? I sure feel that way as I get bogged into details that don’t seem to matter in a big picture initiative. But a brief look at the “what” behind the execution can lead you closer to a Creator Mindset and a focus on quality. For example, if you are a nurse – what is it that you do? Most think that it’s providing care or administering initiatives and so on. What you are executing can seem like an unconnected series of detail, a daily routine that seems like an endless blur. But if you really look at the “what” of what it is that you do, you will tend to find greater meaning in connecting the work into purpose. Maybe it’s a patent advocate that builds the “what” of your work as a nurse – or maybe it’s a hub of information you are able to create for that patent. No matter what the “what” is, if you look at it creatively, you will tend to shy away from quantity and onto quality and meaning.

It turns out that with these two rather simple steps, we can help control an otherwise out-of-control appetite for quantity because any approach to creativity has to have a strong why and what factor in order to reach creative solutions that the analytical mind alone cannot provide. And in that solution, there will be a newfound wealth of quality.