Table of Contents
Everyone Is Creative, Really
Creativity is everywhere, always. You simply need to learn to tap into it. Being creative isn’t something that you either have or don’t have. Having said that, everyone is creative in different ways. Your way to be creative might not seem like creativity to someone else, and vice versa.
We Are Designed to Explore
From the moment you were born, you were trying to find a way to explore your environment. You looked into your mother’s eyes, your dad’s, your siblings’… and then one day you realized you were separate, and you could get around and touch things and learn things. Learning by its very nature is a form of creativity.
We Were All Artists As Children
Every child likes to color, draw, and paint with abandon. They also like to build stuff, play in forts, and make up stories when they play. You did this naturally from a young age but at some point, you grew out of it. You may be creative in a new way now, but you can also bring back that childlike nature of creativity anytime you want to.
We’re Learning All the Time
Even if you’re not actively trying, you’re learning all the time. Your eyes see things, and your mind registers it, even if you’re not consciously aware of it. At some point, you may recall it when you need it. You’re learning random facts via YouTube, your Facebook stream and just by walking around and being alive and around others. Because of this, you’re creative. Learning is a form of creativity.
We All Enjoy Language
We like communicating with each other, and we are always inventing new ways to do it. Letters through the post, telephones, and cell phones are all communication tools. The ability to use language, whether it’s spoken or not, is a creative endeavor. If you communicate with people, you are creative.
We’re All An Expert in Something
Everyone on the planet has something they can claim expertise to. It may be changing a diaper one-handed in under a minute, or something more traditionally thought of as “creative” such as drawing, knitting, or painting, or something people do daily such as cooking or organizing. If you’re good at something, you’re creative.
The fact is, you cannot really, with authority, claim something is or is not creative, because creativity exists even when it’s not recognized.
You can be creative in science, in history, in art, and do everything another way. Raising a family is creative. Going to work is creative. Decorating your home is creative. Creativity is in everyone; you just have to find it and unleash it.
Different Types of Creativity
One of the most desired traits that improves results in almost any role is the ability to be creative. Creativity is important from birth through all stages of life. It plays a role in living, problem-solving, and in playing.
The idea of creativity is a very complex topic with a lot of different opinions. Regardless of the type of creativity someone possesses, there are two factors within the four creativity types that you should be aware of. Every single type of creativity must include originality and functionality. This merely means that the idea must be unique, and it also must work. Energetic and intelligent people have the discipline to work toward creativity rather than wait for it to happen spontaneously.
Let’s look at a few different types of creativity to help explain the concept of creativity.
1. Deliberate and Cognitive
People who have deliberate creative characteristics tend to have a lot of knowledge about a topic, which enables them to create actionable steps to get something done. They are good at research, problem-solving, and investigation. They make great scientists who like to do experiments to discover new facts.
2. Deliberate and Emotional
Often, sensitive and emotional people like to have quiet time to reflect on the choices they need to make or the problems they want to solve. They tend to be logical in decision-making, but they lead with their emotions first. They tend to experience a lot of exciting “aha” moments that they like to go with. They can get distracted when emotions are low and need alone time to focus their mind.
3. Spontaneous and Cognitive
Another type of person who often acts on the “aha” moment is the person who has spontaneous and cognitive creativity. This type of creativity happens when the conscious mind stops working. It requires the ability to relax and think, and then act right away on the thinking. This type of person needs a lot of alone time as well as easy access to the right tools.
4. Spontaneous and Emotional
Artists, musicians, painters, and writers often experience epiphanies as they do their work. They find scientific breakthroughs, discover new religious ideas, and develop philosophical arguments during these moments. Some writers also call this “flow.” It’s that time when you’re working on something, and it just starts coming naturally without much effort.
Regardless of the type of creativity you have, your workers have, or your students have, you can work with all types by remembering that people express creativity in different ways. Creativity is not all about art. It can be about living life, exploring the scientific world, and so much more. You don’t have to allow any definitions to hold you back from bringing more creativity into your life and the lives around you.
The Benefits of Doing New Things
When you get into a routine, sometimes you forget the importance of trying new things. The days become easy. They might even become a blur, and you may not remember anything from one day to the next. You may feel as if you lack any creativity at all. Doing new things interrupts your routine and brings new life into your day. It also does a lot more.
Deal with Failure
When you do more things, you will experience more failure. This may be frightening and a reason you have chosen not to do new things. However, failure, when you try, is something you can learn from. Remember, you are experiencing failure right now if you’re not doing new things. You might as well do new things so that you’ll learn more.
Experience More Success
It’s all in the numbers. If you experience more failure, the numbers say that you’re also going to experience more success. You can’t help it. Once you understand how success feels, you’ll want to do more things so that you can feel it even more.
The Butterfly Effect Is Real
Some people call this the ripple effect or the domino effect. Essentially, what it means is that every single little change you make in your life, or thing that you learn, is going to cause everything you do from that day forward to be different from it would have been if you had not had that experience. Consider, what would life be like today if Steve Jobs and Bill Gates did not start their businesses when they did?
Overcome Challenges
By doing more things, you get to learn about and experience overcoming any challenges that you may face. Each time you have an experience in life, you learn from it so that with the next experience, you can use what you learned to improve it.
Become More Curious
The more you do, the more you learn, and the more you realize you don’t know, the more curious you’re going to become. Once you become curious, you will start to generate more ideas and become even more creative in every aspect of your life.
Learn from Other People’s Experiences
The more things you expose yourself to, the more people you’ll meet. The more people you engage with, the more people you can learn from. You don’t have to experience something first hand to learn about it.
Learn to Push Yourself
Sometimes, doing new things can challenge us to push through our boundaries. The more you do that, the better because you’ll be able to call on that feeling in other aspects of your life too.
The benefits of doing new things far outweigh any risks you may think there are to go outside your routine. You’ll get exposed to new stimuli that will create new stimulation for your mind so that you can come up with more ideas. Plus, it’s fun. Life is about doing new things. Make a list of the things that you want to try and start marking them off.
Benefits of Encouraging Creativity in the Workplace
No matter where people work, creativity has a place. It doesn’t matter if you’re cleaning toilets, designing a building, or filing in an office – creativity at work has a place. There are numerous benefits of encouraging creativity at work for the employer too. Let’s look at some of these benefits.
Improves Bonding and Teamwork
When people are free to be creative, it means they’ll also feel free to talk to each other and explore a lot of different ideas together. This additional communication will improve bonding and teamwork exponentially.
More Productive Engagement and Interaction
When you encourage the engagement at work and find ways to get people to interact more with each other, they’re going to get even better at communicating with each other. That communication will lead to solutions you may not have come up with without a commitment to creativity.
Attracts Dedicated Long-Term Workers
When the work environment is focused on creativity, workers tend to want to stick around. The environment is about finding new ways to solve the problems of the audience and being more creative, enables solutions to flow more freely. That always feels good.
Increases Employee Morale
You know that going to work in an environment that is not open can make you not want to be there. Conversely, going to work in an environment that is open to passionate discussions, brainstorming, and likes to challenge everyone creatively and intellectually, while respecting everyone, makes it a better place to work.
Boosts Productivity
When people can be creative about how they develop solutions to work problems, they are going to be more productive. Getting more done is always a good thing. When people can get things done at work, they like being there.
Solves More Problems
It’s easier to solve problems when you don’t have a constraint about going against the grain and being creative. Being creative is all about finding new ways to do things that might not be obvious at first.
Creates Work-Life Balance
Creativity is found in the downtimes or the boredom of life. A manager understands that and understands that being too tired and overworked can cause more problems with creativity. Therefore, if you encourage creativity in the workplace, you’ll automatically have a better work-life balance.
Increases Passion for the Work
If people like coming to work, and they get to be creative doing it (in their own way), and all that is encouraged, they’re going to be so much more passionate about their work.
Encouraging creativity at work will improve everything about the workplace. People will be happier to be at work, more creative at work, and they’ll be much better at problem-solving too.
When you do that, you’ll also end up with more long-time workers, because workers also feel more passionate about their work and want to stay when the things they do are received well by the management.
How to Find Your Creative Style
Creative style is not about what you do, but about how you do it. The creative style theory, pioneered by Dr. Michael Kirton, addresses the question of why some ideas succeed and some fail even when all parties are creative. It turns out that how you do things matter. Your style is unique to you because no one can do things the way that you do them.
Not only that; your style has nothing to do with your ability as a creator. You can be a low-level or high-level creative person, but the way you innovate and adapt to different situations is what really matters when it comes to success. Knowing your creative style can help you know how you work best so that you can easily set yourself up for success.
There are several tests that you can take to find out more about your own creative style. Let’s look over a few.
Kirton Adaption-Innovation Inventory
This test provides a KAI (Kirton Adaption-Innovation Inventory) for anyone to find out what their range of creative style is. KAI is a continuum, and there is no right or wrong way to be. But knowing can help you improve your actions and thus ensure that your creativity meets success. To take the test, you’ll respond to 33 statements from very easy to very hard. You will need a certified facilitator to give you your KAI score.
You can learn more about KAI by clicking here.
Creative Style Questionnaire
There are many tests for different issues at this site. This creative style questionnaire will help you get to know your creativity and problem-solving style, increase awareness and understanding of your creative style, and more. Plus, you can get tips for overcoming anything that can hold you back. The quiz only takes five minutes, and it can be very helpful.
You may want to take the questionnaire yourself by visiting this link.
What’s Your Creative Style?
This test is offered by Psychologies.co.uk, and while the test itself may not be totally scientific, it is based on science. You’ll always, of course, do best to go to the real place with a KAI certified practitioner, which is the test mentioned above.
However, this one is fun, and you can take it right now online. One thing to remember is that, according to Kirton, everyone is creative. It’s just the way that you create that’s different.
Finding your creative style will come through experimentation and practice. It can help to journal, draw, get into nature, and to just think. Set up your life so that you have downtime where you can get new ideas and then act on those ideas.
Also, you may be high-level or low-level creative, but your style is all your own.
You may adapt, or you may innovate, or you may do some of both.
Steps to Find and Nurture Your Creativity
Even though there really is no such thing as a creativity block, if you’re not accustomed to calling on your creativity when needed, it might take a little work to find it and use it. These steps will help you find and nurture your creativity anytime you need it.
Record Your Ideas
When you have ideas, even if you don’t have time to do something with the idea right now (or you think the idea is rubbish), write it down or record it. You can get an app for your phone to write notes, as well as record your voice. That way you’d have it near you, so you can keep track of your ideas.
Look at Your Goals
When you feel stuck, going back to look at your goals can help. Knowing what you want the result to be can help you figure out how to get there. If you don’t have goals, you need to make them before you start any project or anything at all. Without goals, you have no destination and no motivation.
Get a Second Opinion
This is where having a mentor, coach, or super-honest professional or friend with experience can help you in amazing ways. Talking an idea out with someone who knows which questions to ask and when to push you can bring the most amazing things out of you in terms of creativity.
Find Inspiration
Read, watch movies, go for walks in nature – do what you can to inspire yourself. You may have to try new things to figure out what helps you get inspired enough to find your passion and unleash your creativity. Learning about whatever it is that you’re doing can help tremendously.
Change the Scenery
Get away from it and go do something else for a while, without thinking about “it” – whatever it is. Try doing a completely different task. For example, if you’re writing, go do something that requires talking, so you can activate other parts of your brain.
Find Ways to Relax
Boredom can bring on creativity because when you get bored, your mind will start to wander. When your mind is not stuck on one thing, it can start getting pretty creative to try to keep you awake and engaged. Go rest in a hammock for an hour, go to a flotation pod, meditate. Get very relaxed without sleeping so that you can think.
Energize
If you are feeling tired, and you cannot take a 90-minute power nap, it can help to do something that gives you energy such as having some caffeine, a vitamin water, or a green juice. Do something aerobic so that you can get more oxygen into your bloodstream. When you have more energy, you will come up with better ideas faster.
Do Things
No matter what else you do in life, if you really want to be creative, you need to do things. You need to act. You need to implement it. That means you need to make choices and decisions based on knowledge and confidence. With practice, you will succeed.
Just remember that creativity is already within you. You don’t need anyone to teach you anything to be creative. Every single day, you’re creative in a million different ways that you’re not conscious of at that moment. What’s more is that you can, with practice, call on that creativity when you need it.
Boredom Can Help Unlock Your Creativity
Many people claim that they’re not creative. However, the big secret is that everyone is creative. It’s just that sometimes we only recognize creativity when it’s our type of creativity.
Everything is creative – from fixing your morning breakfast to deciding the outfit you’ll wear today.
In other words, it’s not just painting or creating art that is creative; it’s simply living your life. In the hustle and bustle of life, it just doesn’t feel very creative. However, there is one way to help unleash your creativity, and that is to slow down. Slow down and let yourself get bored.
Go for a Slow Walk
Most of us go for walks, but we walk fast because we’re doing it to exercise. We aren’t doing it to just be in nature and think. Partially, it’s because we don’t have much time. The pressures of life keep us from taking our time and slowing down. But try going for slow walks; take at least an hour-long, leisurely stroll. Let your mind wander, feel the fresh air on your face, and just walk. Don’t think of everything else.
Take a Long Bath
If you cannot go out, take some extra time in the bath. Soap up slowly, feel the water on your body and just enjoy the sensations. Try not to make it a task that you must do or get done in a certain time. Just enjoy. Add more hot water if you need to. Set up the room so that you won’t need to get out for any reason. Just stay in there while you let your mind roam, and you stay in the moment.
Do Nothing
Everyone feels as if they always must be doing something. No one has downtime anymore. But having downtime is necessary for your creativity. You need to take time to do nothing to clear your mind. Doing nothing is an excellent way to sort of reboot your brain so that you can handle more difficult tasks.
Just Think
During the times you’re just letting yourself be bored, if thoughts come to mind, that’s great. Just explore the thoughts without worrying about the direction it’s taking you. Daydream about your wants, needs, and desires. Think about things different from new angles, explore options, get weird and silly and outrageous. It’s okay, because you’re just thinking.
Today, boredom is not something that people often feel. When we’re alone, we pull out our phone, flip on the TV, or boot up the computer. Most of us never let ourselves feel bored or even just still and silent. However, if you want to unlock and unleash your creativity in a way that really helps, find that silence and let yourself get bored.
Overcoming Obstacles to Your Creativity
You hear a lot about creative people becoming blocked. When they get “blocked” they can’t seem to call on their creative skills to get their project done, and it’s a frustrating time. The problem, though, is that most obstacles are usually not even real blocks – they’re just roadblocks that you created. Because of that, you can overcome them easily with just a bit of change.
Lack of Goals
If you have no idea what the result should be, it can be difficult to continue going down the path. Setting realistic goals about how something should look or make people feel or perform is important. If you have goals that are spelled out and specific, you’ll be able to be more creative, even though some people think that stifles them. It doesn’t. Think about a shoe designer, for example. They aren’t lost for ideas, even though the shape doesn’t change much.
Doubt
If you don’t believe in yourself, it’s hard to believe that what you’re doing is going in the right direction. It’s important to believe in yourself. It may help you if you go over the things you have accomplished, so you can re-experience past successes in your mind. This will help you get more confident and let go of doubt, so you can move forward.
Background Noise
If you have lots of distractions around, it can be hard to focus. It doesn’t matter if it’s music you like, or your kids; even a dog barking or a noisy fan can sometimes be distracting. If you’re having trouble focusing, and you notice that you have background noise issues, try getting rid of them if you can. You can get noise-canceling headphones if you need them, or you can find a different room.
Other People’s Thoughts
You need to get feedback on your work, but at the same time it can be something that gets in the way of finishing. It’s hard, but you cannot allow what other people think to guide you that much unless they’re professionals – and even then, don’t make their thoughts and feelings more important than your own.
Fear of Failure or Success
It’s hard to imagine, but people are often just as afraid of success as they are failure. This is especially true when experiencing success isn’t something you know much about. Sadly, we’ve been taught that failure is a bad thing, but the truth is, you must experience failure to get to success. Stop thinking about whether you’re going to succeed or fail; just implement.
Fear of Criticism
Many people have a very hard time with criticism, even if it’s properly done and constructive. The only way to get through this is to get more criticism and practice dealing with it the right and healthy way. Remember to listen and to explore what they say, but you don’t have to agree.
Homeostasis
Setting up processes and automation can help you accomplish a lot, even things that are creative. However, doing things in the same way at the same time with the same tools and everything without changing can become a major obstacle to being creative. Doing things in the way you’ve always done them can be great, but stay open to change.
Passivity
The best part of creativity is always being proactive. You must intend to be creative and be willing to get out of your routine. You need to keep challenging your mind so that it’s open to new ideas. If you find yourself getting upset with change or someone interrupting you (or other silly things), look at whether you’ve become too passive and whether you’re too scared of innovation and change.
Procrastination
This is a major obstacle that many people experience. The thing about procrastination is that it’s really a symptom of another problem: usually fear of success or failure. Sometimes it’s because you truly dislike doing what you’re doing, or you feel unprepared. The best way to overcome this is to know your goals and be willing to do what it takes to reach them.
You can overcome all these obstacles to your creativity by recognizing what is happening and doing something to change what you’re currently doing. When you make a change and come at something from a different angle, it can release your creativity in a way that makes sense and that can really unleash your creative spark.
8 Ways to Start Thinking Beyond the Box
Everyone always talks about “thinking outside the box.” This simply means that you need to come up with a brand-new way to tackle an issue or problem to find solutions that the old ways of doing things may not.
Sometimes, though, it’s hard to get over thinking about things the same way. You may need to employ some tactics and techniques to break out of the mold and think outside the box.
1. Get yourself a second opinion.
When you’re stuck and cannot come up with any new ideas, you can boost your creativity simply by getting another opinion. Even if the opinion is contrary to yours or out-and-out wrong, it will stimulate a new part of your brain learning about it, thus triggering new ideas within you.
2. Find an expert and ask questions.
One way to get new ideas is to surround yourself with experts and talk to them regularly. You can find experts by looking at book authors, local college professors, and others, but you may also know someone who works at your place of employment, goes to your place of worship, or that you know through someone else.
Never be afraid to go out for coffee to talk to an expert about the topic they love. They’ll enjoy it, and you’ll open your mind to facts you maybe did not realize.
3. Try breaking it down into small parts.
Stop trying to figure it out; instead, break it down to the smallest parts. When you do that, you’ll start seeing things differently.
For example, if you ever watch the TV show Chopped, one reason some cooks end up with such amazing dishes is that they break down the ingredients differently in their mind.
Canned chicken becomes protein and celery stalks become salt. Eventually, you realize that you can use each ingredient anywhere protein is used, or salt is used.
4. Don't be afraid to start over.
Sometimes you need to start from the beginning to find the answers. That may require that you reconstruct the thing, situation, or story from the beginning.
When you think about criminal investigations, this is how they often catch people.
They start from the beginning with the victim and learn all they can about the victim’s life. That sometimes seems irrelevant, but it often leads to the killer.
5. Really dig into the research.
The more research you can read about your topic from every angle, the more likely you are to be able to come up with out-of-the-box solutions and ideas. The more you know about what others know, and what others think, the easier it will be to develop your own ideas and opinions.
6. Write about what you know.
As you learn more, start writing it down or otherwise recording it in a way that you can check your notes. Free writing of what you know, without looking it up and thinking much about it, is a great way to come up with new solutions – as you may do amid the “flow” because your mind knows a lot more subconsciously than it knows consciously.
7. Create a mind map, outline or checklist.
Even if you’re not writing something, a mind map or outline (depending on how your brain thinks) will help you organize your thoughts better.
Putting it all in order and rearranging it and adding things to it that you may not have considered at first, will help.
Essentially, you’re creating highly actionable low-content sheets for yourself! It works.
8. Never underestimate the power of a scenery change.
If all else fails, just get away and change what you’re doing and looking at or thinking. Just stop thinking about it at all. Go for a long walk, go for a swim, do something else and let it go for a bit. This is one of the best ways to come up with solutions.
When your mind is at rest, it’s putting all the things you’ve learned together.
But you cannot accomplish that if you don’t get away.
Try some of these tips next time you need to think about something in a new way. The truth is, anything you can do to trick your mind into letting go of the old way so that you can come up with new and relevant ways to do something is valid. You can really blow your mind when you start realizing how creative one had to be to come up with the idea of the telephone, the computer, and other technology.
But remember that you have the same equipment, and there are likely discoveries and inventions that someone hasn’t even considered yet. Will it be you?
FROM SUCCESSFUL ENTREPRENEUR, ALEX GENADINIK
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Alex will take you by the hand and guide you, step-by-step, beginning with the idea phase. The course doesn’t end until you have a complete business ready to launch.
