9 Clues To Unlock Your Creativity

Join the cool kids (because you can)

“Creative.”

Is that a loaded word for you?

Do you cringe inside when you hear it?

Is it how you wish people saw you?

It’s understandable if you have that FOMO experience because so many of our heroes are creatives.

The songwriters, the researchers, the artists, the writers, and the thinkers.

Who wouldn’t want to be on their fun team?

Photo by Daniel Apodaca on Unsplash

Creativity has fascinated me forever.

It’s elemental. Essential. Exciting.

A hero of mine is the late Sir Ken Robinson. An author, educator, and TED speaker, he had a passion for keeping creativity alive in children.

I love his story about the 6-year-old girl in the back of the art class who normally didn’t pay much attention at school.

Her teacher asked her what she was drawing. Without looking up, she answered that she was drawing a picture of God.

Surprised, the teacher said, “But noone knows what God looks like,” and the girl replied, “They will in a minute.”

The confidence, innocence, and imagination of children are all seductive.

Of course, we want back some of that juice we remember having when we were younger.

So let’s look at a few clues that creatives leave behind when they describe their process.

And see what we could adopt.

1. They make it matter

Creative people honor their practice.

They put in the time. They give it priority. They resist excuses.

They play a long game.

Showing up becomes a habit for a lifetime of productive work.

Whether that means they come to work at sunrise or sunset, they try to do something every day.

They sit down, whether or not inspiration sits next to them.

As Pablo Picasso said, “Inspiration exists, but it has to find you working.”

2. They play ‘what if?’

Creatives have fun.

They daydream.

They play.

They mess around, break boundaries, and see what happens.

They enjoy entertaining all possibilities.

Imagining new worlds.

They experiment to find what works for them in service of their creative process. They stay tuned in to their senses, their intuition, and their dreams.

Picture actor Mark Ruffalo:

“I have two hammocks, one Mayan and one Guatemalan, both family size because I like to lie in them perpendicular. When I’m working on a character, I lie in them and daydream. They’re the best tools for working that I have.”

3. They catch ideas

Creative people may have a favorite time for their best work but they know ideas come randomly. So they’re ready to engage when inspiration strikes.

Their sketchbook, notepad, journal, or note-taker app is right there by the bed.

Or the waterproof AquaNotes to catch those shower thoughts.

They know that the key is to not leave the idea in their heads for too long. Because their brains may bump it before they’re ready to re-engage.

They keep sketches and jottings together in one place to retrieve when they’re ready to revisit.

Studies have shown what creative thinkers always knew. Their peak productive and focused times may not be when their most creative ideas come.

The ideas can sneak up in that liminal, relaxed state, falling in or out of sleep. That’s why they stay prepared.

4. They steal, then make it their own

Creative thinkers see everything as a source of inspiration. Including the art of others.

Apprentices and art students copy the art of the masters. Writers copy good writing word for word to learn the style.

Austin Kleon wrote the book on this, “Steal Like an Artist.” He explains that you copy so you can see as your heroes see, to imbibe their thinking.

The idea is not to plagiarize.

The idea is to learn the principles.

It’s to copy what the best do and then make it better, as your own.

Said French-Swiss film director Jean-Luc Godard, “It’s not where you take things from—it’s where you take them to.”

5. They’re OK with incomplete

Creative people can sit with uncertainty. A mess.

They can be patient. They resist the temptation to rush or force.

They may be unsure where the work is going or whether it’s any good, but they don’t abandon it too early.

They don’t sabotage ideas as they’re generating them.

They know that editing and refining are essential.

But they come later.

They’re happy to stop and return with a fresh perspective. To leave the work incomplete and stop fussing.

6. They seesaw their brains

Creative people engage their whole brain.

They go from idea to creative completion, passing through many stages and using a range of skills.

The creative process starts with a simple idea. But the idea comes to life in physical form.

The hands, eyes, and ears all come into play as the work goes through a hundred iterations.

Clay is moulded. Sentences are crafted. Piano chords are tested.

The idea is executed, and execution takes expertise.

Scott Barry Kaufman is a humanistic psychologist and expert in creativity. He debunks the simplistic left-right brain theory of creativity.

He explains that, depending on the stage of the creative task, whole brain networks kick in. One controls language, one is visual, and some are large-scale neural networks.

Look at Leonardo da Vinci’s notebooks. His work shows both imagination and logic, art and science. He questioned, innovated, and invented. He made stuff.

He used everything his genius brain offered.

7. They add this to that

Creative people see connections.

Metaphors.

They see what we all see, but in a new way. In a different relationship.

They entertain paradox—two opposite ideas that work together.

A new combination of colors.

How a character dictates a storyline.

Where a modern story mirrors an old myth.

Business innovators use the interactive process of Mind Mapping to boost productivity. It helps people see the parts and the whole and explore new connections.

Steve Jobs said, “Creativity is just connecting things. When you ask creative people how they did something, they feel a little guilty because they didn’t really do it, they just saw something.”

8. They chill out

Creative thinkers know the value of downtime.

They allow ideas to “incubate”—they sit on it or sleep on it. They wait.

They disengage, rest, and return.

Creatives take time out from other people as well as their art. They value alone time (think “reclusive artist”) and being quiet.

Director David Lynch, credits meditating with staying tuned to his creative source.

For many, the best way to refresh before returning to creative focus is by walking. Beethoven, Goethe, Dickens, Wordsworth, and Darwin each valued long walks in nature.

The Scottish author and naturalist, John Muir, said it well. “In every walk with nature, one receives far more than he seeks.”

What does the science say about this?

Exercise in general, walking in particular, and being in nature boost creativity.

9. They stay open

Creative thinkers stay curious. Unquenchably so.

They’re open to improving and upgrading their skillset.

They’re okay with challenges to their point of view.

They trust in inspiration. The next idea will come.

They love new experiences.

They keep their senses fresh and awake.

They explore and observe. Both the outer world and their inner life.

Kaufman pinpoints such openness as the most relevant thing for creativity:

“I think the key is to keep your wonder and excitement for the world, being open to everything in the environment as well as your own internal stream of consciousness.”

Photo by JOSHUA COLEMAN on Unsplash

Creative thinkers approach the same challenges that we all face, but in novel ways.

So, to reignite that spark in ourselves as adults, let’s remember that we all were creative as children.

If we make time every day to create something, we let the muse know we’re serious about this.

Let’s play a long game.

Let’s take our cue from that young girl in the art class and claim the value of what we create.