12 Genius Ways to Cultivate a Creative Mind

How do you define a creative mind? Is it a person with unreal artistic talent capable of creating beautiful and unique artwork? Or your favorite musician that can sing and play awe-inspiring music? Well, both of these kinds of people are without a doubt creative. 

However, creativity does not stop there. It’s not just about how well you can come up with unique and creative artwork or music. Creativity is the ability to visualize, conceptualize and bring to life different and brilliant ideas that aren’t very straight forward. 

We hear about so many amazing artists, musicians, actors and other influential people in the creative industry. And therefore, for a lot of people, creativity seems like only something a certain group of gifted people have. 

Creative mind – Is it a gift of nature or a learnable skill?

A creative mind, I genuinely believe, is a combination of both a natural gift as well as a learnable skill. Artists become great artists, not by just being born with it, but also by cultivating creativity through life long commitment to creating different kinds of art. 

I am not denying the fact that the natural gift in them helps them to stay more consistent and inspired. It definitely helps them make a decision earlier in their life that creative arts is the career path they want to take. Not every person is meant to be a creative artist, and this does not mean that everyone else should have nothing to do with it. 

If you want to cultivate a creative mind, there are many things you can do that can help you achieve better results across different aspects of your life. 

For easier understanding and application to real life, I have broken down cultivating a creative mind into 3 parts.

1. Develop the right mindset

One of the most important steps of cultivating a creative mind is developing the right mindset. If you’re mentally unprepared, almost anything will feel like a difficult task and you will easily lose focus and motivation to put in effort. To develop the right mindset, below are some practical things you can do.

Practice mindfulness:

To generate creative ideas and be able to execute them into action, you need to be mindful and have a great sense of awareness of the present moment and task in hand. If you are distracted and dwelling about something, it’s very unlikely to be able to come up with creative ways to do things. If you don’t know how to start practicing mindfulness, worry not as below are some great articles to help you learn more about mindfulness and how to practice it.

• 10 Simple Mindfulness Exercises to learn
• What is Mindfulness Meditation?
• A Guide to Mindful Breathing

Relaxation

Another step to follow is taking breaks between focused blocks of work and doing something to relax your mind and body. If you have a balcony or a veranda, you can enjoy a cup of tea and give your mind a mental break. This will allow your mind to reset and look at things again from a fresher perspective.

There are a number of other amazing relaxation techniques you can try that can help you in your journey of developing creativity. 

Ditch perfection & focus on the progress

Perfection is the enemy of creativity. If you are too concerned with creating work that is perfect, you will never have the courage to do things differently. And without doing things differently, there is no creativity. 

Always remember that cultivating creativity is a journey that takes time, failure and criticism. So keep an open mind and be prepared for a long ride. And don’t forget to enjoy it to the fullest.

Accept that it’s a lifelong commitment

Creativity is a lifelong commitment and journey. If you ask any creative person, they can tell you how many different projects they have worked on throughout their careers. Before you get started on your road to becoming a more creative person, understand that cultivating a creative mind can take a long time and you have to get into it with a long term mindset.

2. Seek Inspiration

If you look into the lives of creative people, you will see that they are always looking for inspiration. Most original ideas are inspired by something else. It could be mother nature, an existing philosophy or even our history.

To cultivate creativity, you need to seek inspiration through different methods and do it consistently. Lots of amazing ideas are a result of combining multiple inspirations. Below are some good activities to seek inspiration to fuel your creativity. 

Brainstorming & Critical thinking

Great creative minds do a lot of brainstorming, both alone and as a team. They employ methods such as critical thinking to look at ideas from multiple angles allowing them to create a more multi dimensional output.

Explore Nature

Nature is the ultimate creation. Its vastness and diversity has created so many different types of landscapes, patterns and elements which can all be used as powerful inspirations. Today, we can see so many different products and ideas designed based on the elements of nature.

By spending as much time as possible in nature, you can get lots of inspiration for great ideas and boost your creativity.

Make reading and learning a habit

Great minds have lived and left their mark on our planet. Majority of them are in the form of knowledge or books. The world’s libraries and bookstores are filled with an immense amount of wisdom. And today, there’s so much amazing information on the internet.

If you make a habit of reading and learning, you become a rich source of information that can help you translate it into new and creative ideas. Below are some great resources to find amazing books you can start reading now.

• 12 Best Books to read for Success
• 10 Best Habit books of all time
• Reading habits of successful people

Travel whenever you can

Every culture has its own way of life. The way we build houses, cook and eat, work, build family and relationships is different amongst different cultures. By becoming an avid traveler with an open mind, you open yourself to experience unique ways of doing things in different aspects of life. 

Such experiences make you more open minded and can help you draw inspiration from different cultures that you’ve experienced.

3. Take Action

Starting off with the right mindset and inspiration is great to boost creativity. However, nothing can be achieved without the most important step of all, ACTION. This is where 99% of people get stuck in life no matter what they are trying to achieve. They simply don’t take the necessary actions for the required amount of time.

Below are some important actions you need to take if you want to make progress in your journey of cultivating a creative mind and creating inspirational work.

Design your own creative workspace

Every person needs their own workspace no matter what kind of work you do. And just having a space to work is not the same as creating your own workspace. If you want to achieve greatness, you need to create a personal workspace that is comfortable and inspires you to spend time there. 

It can be a studio, a work station with a chair and table or a full fledged office environment. Your creative workspace has to inspire you, be free of distraction and give you enough space and the right tools to create.

Have a daily creativity practice

This step is very important, especially for beginners. You cannot expect to develop creativity without action. So what can you do? It depends on what kind of creative you want to become. Any work that involves creating something can help you boost creativity.

So depending on what you want to become, you can write, draw, paint, play an instrument, create digital art, practice kicking a ball in a specific way etc. The options are endless really. So pick any one or a few and commit yourself to daily practice.

Network and connect with creative people

Make an effort to follow and network with the best creative people in your community and also online. There’s much to be gained by having the right connections and building the right relationships. Not only will you be able to gain a great amount of knowledge but you may also just get a life-changing opportunity through them. 

Keep experimenting

On your journey of cultivating a creative mind, always be open to new and unique ideas and try to experiment with them. Even though it may seem as abnormal or a misfit, you never know what might just turn into one of the most creative work that you have ever done. So, approach things with curiosity and try lots of different ideas.

Some final thoughts

Creativity can immensely help you in your personal and professional life. It can help you find solutions to many problems in life as well as help you improve the quality of your work ultimately leading to success. 

Hence, committing to cultivating a creative mind is a great investment for your future self. Let’s get started!