There is no destination in business or life. It’s all journey – all of it – Marie Forleo.
When you’re first learning how to start a business there are loads of things you need to do.
An overwhelming amounts of information and possible actions to take – especially if you start to look for help online.
Entrepreneurship is a complex career path.
There are many qualities that can help you along this journey, such as passion and determination.
However, one attribute in particular should be valued above all others:
Creativity
Creativity is a bigger predictor of success in life than intelligence.
Yes in order to be a successful entrepreneur in today’s world, a person cannot achieve a high level of success without being creative.
Chief human resources and strategy officers from leading global organisations revealed that the skill of creativity will be a necessary asset for anyone working in 2020, in all levels of a small to large business, from admin assistants to CEOs.
It is the number one skill for the 21st Century.
Many of us wrongly assume that creativity is our ability to be ‘artistic’, but actually, it is about:
- problem-solving
- thinking laterally
- generating and brainstorming new visions
- and coming up with different ways of presenting those ideas.
Unfortunately it’s just been drummed out of us at an early age that creativity, curiosity, experimentation and expression of ideas are all things that are not associated with work, a job, a business or a career
Traditional educational programs are not structured to encourage creativity.
Unfortunately, the working world isn’t much better.
Structure, workplace issues, and reward systems abound that are destructive to the creative process.
I used to be a creative kid for example and good at drawing but I never got encouraged to see how my creativity could be channelled in a work context (unless you were gonna be a painter or graphic designer …)
And in our productivity obsessed culture, we’re forget connection with this creativity as we are either constantly working or feeling guilty because we think we should be.
“As Dr. Stuart Brown, a pioneer on the research of play remarked, “The opposite of play is not work. It’s depression.”
So how do you unlock your creativity?
There will be times when your mind simply goes blank—not a creative thought to be found.
Even experts lose their creative genius at times.
As your age matures, your creativity also declines, unless you proactively nurture it and strive to be more creative on a daily basis.
Allow yourself to play and creativity will follow – Marie Forleo
Sometimes you have to force yourself to discover new and unique ways to get your creativity back. And I want to help you to unleash your creativity with the following 10+ tips:
- Progress over perfection: Successful entrepreneurs are more flexible and seek improvement more than they seek perfection. That’s okay! Everyone makes mistakes, especially if you are learning something new. Messing up is how you learn! If you know something isn’t working, don’t think of it as a failure. Remind yourself that even knowing something is going wrong means you have a bit more knowledge. Remember the mistake and move on. Failure is not evidence that you are no good. Failure is a milestone on the road to greatness. Mark that milestone and keep on walking. An entrepreneur shares an idea and is open to feedback that improves and refines the idea.Creativity leads to innovation, which in turn leads to improvement in the business one way or the other.
- Shift Negative Thoughts Into a Positive Mindset Simply changing your mindset can help you to be more creative. Tell yourself, “I can figure this out” or “I’m open to any ideas that anybody can come up with or “everything is figureoutable.” By repeating these positive thoughts, you are far more likely to get a rush of the creative inspiration that will help you solve your problem, and far less likely to throw away possible solutions that come to mind.
- Take a Break From the Mundane Break your routine for a day. Do things differently. Change the way you go to work. Meet new people. Eat new foods. Do something you’ve never done before. Just be different for a day. The “new you” is likely to come up with new ideas.
- Read Biographies or Autobiographies of Inspiring, Creative People. Another way to stimulate your brain is to read about other successful and creative people. You can pick up a lot just by reading about what worked for creative minds of the past. How did they solve their creativity problems? Is there anything you can learn from their successes or failures?
- Surround Yourself By Nature. Many people find that they get a creative jolt simply by being present outdoors. Fresh air, birds chirping, sunshine, and other natural scenes to take in are usually a positive change of pace, especially for a city-dwelling businessperson. But, neuroscientist David Strayer discovered in his research that “four days of immersion in nature, and the corresponding disconnection from multi-media and technology, increases performance on a creativity, problem-solving task by a full 50% in a group of naive hikers.”Psychologists hypothesize that our daily lives are consumed with work demands, device notifications, multitasking, and constant interruptions, all of which place a huge load on the prefrontal cortex of the brain. Unfortunately, this is also the area we rely on for our higher-level thinking, reasoning, problem solving, and creativity. The fatigue of our attention and cognitive abilities leads to a lack of that “spark” we need for inspiration.Turn off your devices, stop thinking about the problem, and just be physical. So, don’t feel guilty for taking time away from your business in the short term, because the result of properly nursing your creativity will be a much-improved state of mind.
- Get very uncomfortable. First, I’ve found that original thinking and innovation only occurs when you are uncomfortable. If you are continually immersed in your comfortable daily routine at home, on the commute, at work, etc., your mind runs on autopilot. To spark creativity, you need to overload your sensory system and shock your system into a higher level of alertness. Do something today that you are not used doing.
- Take more risks: This is the first time in the history of the world where the risky thing is to do the traditional thing. That’s more risky than “taking risks” and becoming something outside the dominant paradigm. It’s more risky now do the same old shit than it is to get into an adventure and write your own script. So go out there and take more risks.
- In addition to new ideas, businesses and business owners also need to be able to effectively problem solve. Whether it is a financial issue, customer service issue, or a business model issue, there will always be unforeseen issues that arise – which require a solution. By using your creative thinking skills, you are improving the ideas you can come up with…Creative thinking can help you decipher the easiest and most valuable solution needed to solve your problem. In turn, this can have a more positive impact on your business as the problem is handled smoothly and efficiently.
- From my talent perspective the most important tip. Use your unique talents and learn how to leverage them: Ever seen a monkey glide through coral in a shaft of light? Dance a ballet with a school of monkeys, feeding on the shifting tide? We wouldn’t judge the powers of a monkey on the basis of its performance at the bottom of the sea. Why is it, then, that we judge our own powers based on our performance in environments that we did not choose but simply found ourselves in? Like fish out of water, we watch our compatriots swing through the trees and curse our luck to be born clumsy and stupid. But what if our apparent lack of talent were really just a lack of fit — a lack of fit between our personal gifts and the contexts in which we are expected to apply them?What environments do you need to cultivate your gifts? Perhaps you need to work with a small group of clients instead of trying to fill in your events with 100 of people. Everyone is different, and everyone needs a different environment to unleash their gifts and become what they can be.Forget about who you’ve been told you are and even where you think you belong. Sometimes, to find yourself, you need to lose yourself first. You need to leave the place where you’ve been raised and wander in the wilderness awhile to find your home.
- Find your creative flow. Tap into the intuitive side of the mind and harness our potential. Look especially for challenging activities that help you get into flow. The way you get into flow offers a good indication of your gifts.Studies show that, in the state of flow, we tend to perform better than when we are thinking about what we’re doing. We become more creative too. We shut down the prefrontal cortex — the part of the brain responsible for conscious reflection — and tune into our holistic bodily awareness. We slip into a state of consciousness akin to daydreaming. We become more sensitive and receptive to new ideas and associations. It becomes easier to improvise and spontaneously create. It becomes easier to tap into our creative gifts.Through flow, we find our gifts. When we find ourselves in flow unexpectedly, in the midst of a unfamiliar task, we are tapping into genius.
- If you want to cultivate your genius, look for the most challenging things you enjoy doing, not the things that you love. Tackle these tasks and make them easy and you’ll discover a sense of accomplishment that can be even more rewarding than love.You need to work at what you do best until finding your flow becomes second nature, until genius is no longer something that you aspire towards, but simply something that you do.
- Identifying your gifts, of course, is just the beginning. To cultivate your creative genius, you need to devote yourself to developing these gifts. Personal mastery takes practice. Ten years, or 10,000 hours, should do it.The American author Malcolm Gladwell reaches this conclusion in his book,‘Outliers’. Gladwell researched the lives of people who had been astonishingly successful in their fields. He found that these people had devoted at least 10,000 hours to honing their craft before their career took off. That’s an average of 20 hours per week for 10 years. The Beatles spent 10,000 hours rocking the clubs of Hamburg before their first hit record climbed the charts. Gladwell himself spent 10,000 hours plying his trade as a journalist before writing his first bestseller.Gladwell’s 10,000 hour rule is the third condition for cultivating your creative genius. To turn your talent into a life-defining pursuit, you need to devote 10 years to excellence. As Aristotle said: ‘We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act but a habit’.
Implementing your ideas and visions is what matters most. Don’t sit with your dreams – chase them – Sami Caramella
For some readers, this will be discouraging news. We like to think that if we are truly good at anything, we should be able to do it excellently at the drop of a hat. This is simply not true. As someone who has created a business out of creating good ideas (with ideation as a core talent) , I can tell you it is hard work. Before you can start producing good ideas with regularity, you need to throw a lot of stuff at the wall. You need to try, try, try — fail — try — fail — and keep going.
People are alike in many ways, but our talents are all different. That’s often the problem with general advice. What works for one person may not work for another. Talents very. Everyone has their own set of unique strengths. And when you are not aware of your unique strengths it is easier to fall into the trap of old conditioning and beliefs that is holding your creativity in prison.
So are you ready to unlock your creativity for more business success?
What’s your favorite tip for boosting your creative juices?’ … ‘Drop me a message and let’s chat!
With love
