Creativity is not only limited to professional artists. We are all creative beings by nature, this natural creativity can be observed especially in childhood. We all know how creative children are, with their curious questions about the world to impromptu drawings on walls, children exhibit an innate need to express their creativity without limitations.
Creative skills can be improved by following the advice of many ‘creative geniuses’. From brainstorming with friends to get creative ideas to practicing a ritual before you start your creative work, these tips from the experts can help you to improve. But the best way to improve creative skills is… daily practice.
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How exactly do you feel when you think about creative skills? Do you think about writing a song? Artwork? Arranging furniture, selecting paint for your house, and picking out beautiful home décor are things we have all done at some point in our lives. Didn`t it require your creative skills?
Arranging your own desk at work does take some creativity too! In addition, everything you do at work has some use of creative skills. You need creativity to assemble a killer presentation, compile a convincing proposal, and even to convince your boss to give you the next big project.
We do plenty of things using our creative skills in our day to day lives without actually thinking that we are using our creativity. For example, throwing a surprise Birthday party, arranging a romantic proposal for the love of your life, or making sandcastles on the beach with your kids all require some form of creative skills. Whether you are an artist or not, improving your creative skills will certainly add more color to your life! Check out the video below of a beautiful home on wheels inspired by Lord of the Rings to get an idea of amazing creative skills at work.
Amazing Lord Of The Rings Inspired Van Conversion
Draw a mind map
Whether you are planning a website for your client, writing a novel or dissertation, putting your ideas in writing on paper will help you to have a great start at whatever project that you are doing. Write down all the ideas that pop into your head, don`t think about the order or organization. Check this video to get an idea of how to create a mind map. When you have written all the ideas within you, you will physically feel lighter. You can now connect these ideas and map out the path for your project.
Brainstorm
Talk to your friends about your ideas. If you are working on a project at work, discuss it with your coworkers and mentors. Talking to different people and getting a different perspective will help you to have more creative ideas in any project that you work on.
Take a walk
This is the most popular method writers use to relieve themselves from the ‘writer’s block’. Walking helps the mind to process various ideas. Often when you try to force yourself to come up with creative ideas the natural creative flow is blocked. Giving yourself a break by taking a walk brings back that natural flow of ideas by removing the internal resistance.
Work on your creative projects daily
Steven Pressfield in his book The War of Art talks about how to start and continue with your creative projects. His main advice is regardless of whether good ideas come to you or not, you should work on your creative project for a set time on a daily basis in order to overcome resistance and get to work. Set at least 20mins daily to work on your project – see how far it can go!
If you want to increase creativity and imagination, the best method is by looking at art. Visit an art gallery, let your soul connect with other artistic creations. Watch a movie and be inspired by amazing stories and music. Go for a drive while enjoying great music. Read up more on the project that you want to work on. When your mind has more information, it will make great connections and come up with new ideas. All these methods are guaranteed to increase creativity and imagination.
Just like physical exercise, it takes daily practice to train your creativity. Creativity is like a muscle, you must exercise it to get stronger. Experts often suggest the easiest way to train your creative muscle is by taking a pencil and drawing anything on a piece of paper. Simply doodling or drawing something on paper stimulates the creative side of the brain.
And don`t forget to keep working on your creative projects daily!
A creative person who lives and breathes creativity and often makes a living out of their creative work exhibits distinct characteristics. Everything we use daily, like the chair, cup, and phones all came to be as a result of creative minds that worked together to bring these wonderful products into the world.
Even if you don`t earn money through your creative projects, we can adopt some of these traits into our own lives because creativity is not about making money, it’s about living a more joyful soulful life.
1. A creative person is focused
Creatives often remove all distractions, they understand the importance of making creative decisions and the mental energy and time required for it. Managing time by removing distractions such as spending time on social media is common among creatives.
Many creatives remove all social media apps from their phones, as a way of avoiding constant distractions. The workspace of a creative person is arranged in a way to provide maximum focus, often artists are unreachable when they work on their art, they understand the importance of not interrupting the ‘flow’.
2. Creatives overcome resistance
Creative people always show up for their work. They overcome self-doubt by putting in the work regardless of the resistance of the mind. Listen to this wonderful talk by bestselling author Steven Pressfield about how creatives overcome resistance.
“The ability to overcome resistance, self-sabotage, and self-doubt is way more important than talent” – Steven Pressfield
3. Practice, practice, and practice
Just like anything, creativity requires practice, discipline, and putting in the hours to make your craft better. Robert Greene in his book Mastery has mentioned that the deliberate practice of one`s project is vital to gain mastery. Creatives gain mastery through daily practice.
Before their daily practice, most creative people also perform a ritual before starting their work. Dr.Wayne Dyer lights three candles on his desk before he starts writing his books, many others take walks in nature before they start work.
4. Head – Heart – Gut alignment
A creative person has to align their head with their heart and gut. This is also called listening to your intuition. When making creative decisions, a debate between the logical mind and the heart will cause conflict. Creative people, over time, recognize how to distinguish between the voices of the logical mind that might sabotage the creative project from the voice of the heart. Aligning these ‘voices’ successfully and working towards the completion of the project is vital for any craft.
5. Slow-motion multitasking
Creative people work on several projects at the same time, the average number of optimum projects have been observed to be five projects. They worked on these projects for many numbers of years, for example, Charles Darwin wrote several books throughout his lifetime, and he spent 44 years on one particular book. According to statistics, scientists who continuously published good research papers are the ones who kept switching the subjects that they were working on.
This concept called slow-motion multitasking is, not getting distracted by working on too many projects at the same time but focused work on several limited number of projects over a long period. In fact, multitasking without focus could actually even ruin your life.
Creativity should be nurtured from childhood, for example, instead of shouting at a child for drawing pictures on the wall, the parents could give him a drawing book. Not all parents encourage creativity, and the children end up forgetting their natural creativity when they become adults. Creativity is one of the most useful traits we can have, not just for everyday life but as a way to express and expand joy through your soul. When you do something creative, the mind always takes the backseat and the soul starts driving. This is why many of us get lost in creative work when it comes straight from the soul.
“The longest journey you will ever take is the 18 inches from your head to your heart.”
—Andrew Bennett
You don’t have to be an artist that gets lost for days creating art to be called a creative person. We all need creative outlets to lead more joyful lives. If you feel like your desk job is sucking the soul out of you, try taking up a creative hobby like an arts and crafts class. See how you feel, always follow the feeling of your heart, creative thoughts, and ideas often create a certain warmth in your heart. Being too analytical and logical hinders creativity, we all know what happens when we think too much. Take the journey to release your creative soul, you will not regret it.