A lot of people have the perspective that creativity is an innate characteristic you’re born with and only a fraction of the population possess it. When we talk about creativity, we usually think of people like Leonardo da Vinci, William Shakespeare, and Albert Einstein. But the thing is, being creative is more of a nurtured skill than natural talent. Sure, creatives make it look hard sometimes to be as imaginative and skilled as they are. However, the key secret to creativity is practice, practice, and practice. You ought to put more time and effort into it to have that creative juices flowing through your veins. In this article, we will give you a couple of tips and tricks on how to be creative.
Creativity is just like preparing yourself to become physically fit: the primary goal is to be fit, strong, and healthy; it’s not a one-size-fits-all dilemma but there are hundreds, if not thousands of ways to achieve that goal. Thus, just like exercising and doing other physical activities, it requires time, persistence, effort, practice, and patience. Apparently, creativity is not just useful for creating arts and crafts. It also gives you plenty of advantages in everyday life as you use your problem-solving and critical thinking abilities– those two are some of the components of creativity, imagination, and innovation. How to be creative like the geniuses? Let’s find out below.
Top Ways on How to be Creative:
1. Set aside 30 minutes or more creating something:
For your creative flower to bloom, you need to spend time creating something for your mind to wander. Doing such will not only tickle your imagination, but it will also put your brain to “rest” from doing too much at work or school and getting a lot of information from the outside world. It doesn’t matter what you create; a painting, doodle, drawing, sculpture, poem, crafts, and so forth are all good for your brain. The mere fact that you are releasing your energy and indulging yourself in a relaxing artistic activity fires up your brain activity and neural connections.
2. Keep a Mind Map Journal:
Brainstorming new ideas is nothing too new to us, especially if you’re exposed to teamwork or generating concepts for your projects. If you’re not familiar with mind maps, these are basically visual imagery of concepts and ideas that can help you jumpstart your creativity while improving your memory at the same time.
3. Take photographs and collect mementoes wherever you go:
One of the secrets of how to be creative is to stay inspired. How to get inspiration? By looking at the world in a way that you haven’t looked at before. Change your perspective and go outside, collect keepsakes from different destinations, even simple yet beautiful flowers will do, press them in a book, then you have something that you can use for your scrapbook or journal! Capture beautiful moments and sceneries in your busy city, beach, the sunset view from the balcony, and so forth. You can even take photos of simple household items the way Andy Warhol did and make art out of them. And how can it help to improve your creativity? It basically shows you that the world is aesthetic and art-like.
4. Make something out of the ordinary:
Creativity is all about being unconventional. Try making artwork from everyday household items, find other ways to use daily objects apart from their main purpose, rework some clothes, make use of your trash, go to the flea market and upcycle items, etc. Doing such does not only improve your creativity, but it’s also environment-friendly.
5. Challenge yourself:
Now, this is how you practically use your creative skills. When problems arise, treat them like you would when solving a Rubik’s cube. Why? Because playing with the cube allows you to think critically, find patterns, and generate ideas that can help you solve the riddle. Whenever you are stuck in a problem, challenge yourself to think of possible solutions, innovate, and don’t just use solutions that you used before. Instead, come up with better ideas that will not only solve the problem but can also make the situation better.
6. Do not be afraid to make mistakes:
If there is a great lesson that we can learn as a kid, it would be mistakes are the learning pathway. A child will never learn how to walk until they stumble a few times; which is the same with life. Such isn’t an excuse to be reckless all the time, but rather, mistakes should be used as a learning tool for experiences. All we need to do is to learn from our failures, stand up, and start over again.
7. Get rid of negative attitude:
Avoid self-criticism, negativity, self-comparison, and laziness. It’s understandable that we often criticize ourselves, compare our work with other people, and stay negative and lazy throughout the day, but we need to get rid of that attitude. It will not help us grow as human beings and it will also impair our growth and creative abilities. Instead, learn how to appreciate yourself and achievements, stay positive and surround yourself with positive people, ask for constructive criticism from others (and learn to take it professionally) and have a routine. These habits can help you jumpstart your creativity while nurturing you to become a better person as well.
8. Keep a creativity journal:
This can be an art journal and diary all-in-one where you can also write your ideas, it’s all up to you. Here you can paste magazine clippings, dried flowers, polaroid images, newspaper clippings, and other mementos that can help you generate more ideas, keep you inspired, and creating.
Make Creativity a Habit
These are just some of the ways on how to be creative. Creativity is for everybody and it’s a skill that can be nurtured and practiced. Remember, being creative and making your brain spark with thousands of ideas is a journey that has different ways to get there. Find your own ways to get you going and whenever a creative block hits you, pause for a while and then move up and start creating again. Don’t let yourself stay in a slump for too long, it’s not helpful. Now, get up and let your imagination flow!