Unleashing your inner creativity: Roadmap to unlocking ‘Your Creative Potential’

In the last two posts – Unleashing your creativity I and Unleashing your creativity II, I covered the fact that we have the capacity to be creative and shared some of the potential pitfalls along the way. In the concluding post, I’m focusing on action and way forward. How do we move from the academic to the practical side of things and what actions can we take to unleash our creativity and tap into our inner genius.

In this final post, I want to share a roadmap to guide us on our journey towards unlocking our creating potential. Here are some tips:

Start Small

As they say, Rome wasn’t built in a day and in the same manner, we must start this journey by taking one step at a time. Start with small creative exercises or projects to build your creative muscles. If you are like me, you can be tempted to dive in at the deep end which can be a costly exercise. Also at this stage you are still finding yourself and might be unsure of what will draw you in or bring the best out of you.

You need to expose yourself to different creative projects before you decide on the one that really makes you sing and that can take some time. Be patient and start small.

Diversify Your Experiences

It’s all about diversity and exposure. You don’t know what you like until you are exposed to lots of things so explore new hobbies, travel to different places, and meet people from diverse backgrounds.

Exposure to new experiences fuels creativity. I have friends that bring me ingredients and cookbooks from their travels which introduces me to new cuisines from places I’ve never been to. This new knowledge adds to my repertoire and makes me think of new ways to introduce them into what I already do and know which results in something new that I’ve never done before. Diversity truly is power, strength and the smart thing to do.

Keep a Journal

It’s important to capture the creative thoughts that come to you so keeping a journal on you at all times is critical. I keep a notepad next to my bed and always have a way to capture ideas that come to me and sometimes, it could be sending a text or email to myself to remind me not to forget an idea.

Use a creativity journal to jot down ideas, inspirations, and observations. It’s a treasure trove of creative sparks.

Ask for Feedback

Feedback is key to us being better at whatever we do or come up with creatively. Without feedback our thoughts, ideas and visions are only as good as we can come up with based on our personal experiences and skills. Feedback opens us up to other people’s knowledge, skills and experiences and we are better for that extra input that help take our ideas to the next level.

Share your work with trusted friends or mentors and welcome constructive feedback that can help you refine your ideas and be better.

Practice Mindfulness

Mindfulness is a word that is now on everyone’s radar for the right reasons. We live in a world where the biggest enemy of creativity is a cluttered mind even more than lack of time. It’s important that we learn to be in the moment so ideas don’t disappear into a dark hole of clutter.

Mindfulness exercises can help you tune into your inner creativity and reduce mental clutter. Creativity and mindfulness dovetail into each other as the more mindful you are, the more you pick up on creative ideas and gain insight to develop them. Learn to take time to just be and neuroscientist advice that we sit still for at least 16 minutes per day and allow ourselves to day dream and over time, our minds will start to use this time to bring thoughts to our consciousness.

Be courageous

Embracing your inner creativity takes courage, but the rewards are boundless. It’s about daring to imagine, innovate, and transform the ordinary into the extraordinary.

As you start on this creative journey, don’t be afraid of making mistakes, changing course or trying something outside of your comfort zone.

Remember the words of Henri Matisse, “Creativity takes courage.”, and take that bold step into the realm of possibility. Your creativity awaits, ready to reshape your world and the wider world in wondrous ways. In conclusion, take a couple of these points and immediately deploy them for a few weeks before adding more to help you on your journey.

Thanks for reading and sharing this post with others. See you next week.