4 practical steps to find and develop your creative skills

“You have to be born creative!”…somehow it’s the way most people think. They say creative people always hide some secrets and do not want to share them. Here’s why it can’t be true:

NASA claims that 98% of children are already born creative geniuses, but lose these skills because of the lack of their “pumping”.

Creativity has never been excessive. Non-standard thinking and the ability to solve work issues in a nonlinear way are desirable qualities for any employer.

In fact, it’s a muscle: the more you pump it, the more efficiently it works. I suggest 5 ways to recover your creative thinking:

1. Expand your interests

Steve Jobs once said: “Creativity is just connecting things.” Indeed, the best connections are non-standard. For example, when you bring your experience from one field to another. Personally, I often practice this approach using examples from offline business in tech.

To find such combinations you need to discover something new for yourself. How? Read and take interest in completely different fields from your work. For example, besides startup topics I study interior design, marketing and creativity. It really cheers up and inspires!

2. Give it time

Give your creativity time to warm up. I call it “credating”. Choose one day a week when you can dedicate 2 hours for creativity. At this time, do only what you want, not what is necessary and important. The tradition of being all by yourself seems scary at first. But this is the only way we can feel our own creativity. Therefore:

• go to the museum
• clean your house (of course, if this process cheers you up)
• buy a new notebook
• decorate a corner in your home that inspires you
• visit an exciting event
• watch movies or interviews

Creativity is about fun, don’t forget about that.

3. Keep a diary or simply record your thoughts

Have you ever noticed that when you write down your plans or thoughts, everything becomes more clear? This is the main rule of the diary. Many researches show that it helps to feel and understand yourself better, to pay attention to the right moments. For example, if you bought a new dress, next time you go out you will immediately notice anyone wearing a similar one. If writing a diary is difficult, you can just write down your thoughts on paper. Not only the ideas, but also the plan for their realization. Ideas are puzzles and they are really fun to explore.

4. Changing the routine

If you do what you always do, you always get what you always get. Changing your routine is extremely important. Especially if there is no walking, healthy sleep, sports, yoga in your daily life.

Take a walk every morning or every evening, preferably without a gadget. Change the route to your work, have breakfast in a new cafe, choose a different time for training, etc. Try to bring something new to your life. Such walks give us a huge boost of energy, it’s only a matter of changing small details in our daily activities.

By practicing different methods, you will find your own way to creativity. Just take one step at a time and everything will work out for you!