The Secret Ways of Highly Creative People
Many of us view creativity as a childhood feature that is lost somewhere along the way or as something that is intended only to the few chosen ones, or as we call them – the artists.
That is all far from being true, since we are all prone to creating.
All that we should do is recognize our hidden creativity and give it a much needed boost.
Neuroscientists researching the topic of creativity are debunking the myth that there is only “the right brain creativity” and that the whole brain is participating in the complex process of generating new ideas and performing creative tasks.
As such, creativity is something that should be developed, enhanced and nourished.
To find out how to do it, we will get uncreative and copy the ideas and habits of highly creative people.
Engaging into Imaginative Playing
There is a reason why we link creativity to children – there is a strong bond between kids and imagination and they know how to use that imagination to boost their creativity.
For an adult, it can be rather silly to play Batman and Superman, but there are other ways to play imaginative games as a mature person.
Give yourself some task and imagine that you are that person from your mind.
The simpler way, of course, is to start taking acting classes.
A Day for Dreaming
Your mother may have called your tendency to spend times under the covers and daydream about magical things is a waste of time, but you know better.
In fact, according to Psychology Today, the content of your daydreaming plays an important part in your emotional wellbeing and it can lead to improvement in creative thinking.
A Room of one’s Own
Creative people sometimes need some time for themselves and for solitary reflections when they can dwell into themselves and find answers for many pending questions.
So, alone time can enable us to get enough room to make productive use of our thoughts and our inner worlds.
Taking one room just for yourself and adapting it to its new trigger-creativity feature can be a way to truly feed your creative mind.
Even the famous author Virginia Wolf insisted that she must have a room alone if she is going to write anything.
An Area to Express
Once all that creativity is gathered, creative people must have some area, whether a hobby or work itself, to express it.
It can be anything, ranging from painting all the way to cooking.
Some people find it useful and inspirational to join art and functionality together, so they make jewelry, repaint furniture, practice decoupage, etc.
Photography is a great way to show your creativity and constantly learn.
Finding a single area to focus on can only fasten the progress.
Some people prefer portraits, other, documentary photography, while some focus on inspiring love pictures of anything that reminds them on that emotion (couples, heart-shaped balloons, etc.).
Openness to New Experiences
Daydreaming alone is just one part of being creative.
Creative people are not only exposing their minds to different and new thoughts, but they engage in new experiences with their whole body and soul.
Exploring their inner world is just the first step, exploring the outer world is its natural extension.
This requires thrill seeking and intellectual curiosity.
“Why Do We Fall…
… so we can learn to pick ourselves up.”
This is the ultimate truth every highly creative person learns over time.
Doing creative work is a process where you are failing repeatedly until you find something that actually sticks.
It is important not to take failures personally.
After all, they are results of trying, and, as long as you are trying, you are doing something useful, and you are on your way to that big idea.
Asking the “Big Questions”
Curiosity is one of the most important qualities of creative people.
And they are not curios just about the regular daily stuff, but they are questioning the deep meaning of everything and everyone.
They observe the world and ask “why and how things work some way”.
Precisely because creativity is often viewed as a matter for children and young people, creative persons maintain that sense of curiosity about life, as they get older.
Observing Everything and Everyone
Of course, creative people are not spies, but they draw their creativity from the information gathered in everyday life.
The writers, for instance, can take some qualities of the hundreds of different persons to create a single, unique book character.
Marcel Proust, for instance spent “almost his whole life people-watching, and he wrote down his observations” which eventually resulted in his books.
Time Is Not of the Essence
Creativity does not have working hours.
You cannot just wake up one day and say: “Hey, it is a lovely day to spend 8 hours expressing my creativity.
How about 9h to 17h?”.
On the other hand, when they get “in the zone” they can spend days working on their ideas.
To conclude, a creative mind is a nourished mind, thought to go beyond its boundaries, because there are no boundaries for creativity.
