Creativity Habits for Entrepreneurs

Creativity Habits for Entrepreneurs Make Sense!

Just like anything else in your life, being creative means having habits that support you. Without creativity habits, entrepreneurs may have mental blocks such as writers block that slip in and make life miserable. As we go through some of the creativity habits, you may recognize that some of them are similar to productivity and laser focus habits. Practicing what you read here, will help you in many areas of your life, not just your creativity.

Having a routine is essential. By setting up how you get into a motivated state, work in the same time slots and what your sleeping/waking hours will be…is a huge benefit to you. The proper sleep is so important. Your creativity will suffer if you are tired and if you do not lead a healthy lifestyle.

While Hollywood has shown creative people as hard drinking, party time folks, this is not how the vast majority of creatives live their lives. And if they do, they suffer the consequences. Just ask Stephen King, who stated in an interview that he didn’t remember writing the Tommy Knockers and that his addictions got so bad, his wife and family told him that things were over unless he changed.

Starting your day off with the right amount of sleep, a proper breakfast and plenty of water, will help you with your laser focus. You need to hone-in on one creative idea at a time and focus is key. Get motivated to be creative by having items or people around you that spark your imagination and drive. Having set times to do your artwork, blog or creating new products in a business, means that you have a set routine and you will stick to it. Stray away from the routine frequently and your creativity will nose-dive.

In your routine, you need a time to work in a journal or doodle book. Some of your best ideas will come out of putting down simple sentences in a journal about what you see or observe around you.

A doodle book allows you to let your mind reach and pull in thoughts that would normally scatter. You get to quickly doodle out those thoughts and maybe even make a quick notation above it. Come back to your doodle book or journal frequently to see what you put down the weeks before.

During the time you are away from that particular page, your subconscious mind has been running all sorts of creativity programing in the back. A particular doodle you did in the past that didn’t mean much, might suddenly be a creative breakthrough for you.

When you put plenty into your mind, your output sky-rockets. Beloved writer, Ray Bradbury stated that he began to read at age 3. He was at the library at a very young age and knew that the books that he saw on the shelf, were actually people. He was always curious and if you find that you are not, then start being curious about everything around you and ask questions. When he read the Tarzan books by Edgar Rice Burroughs, he wasn’t really reading, he was talking to Mr. Burroughs.

Ray Bradbury knew that by putting plenty into his mind, he would have a lot of fascinating output and the characters he wrote about, actually talked to him and told him what to write. He also followed the idea of having inspiration in his writing room. Bradbury would walk in, sit down and look around the room at his dinosaurs, snow globes and other assorted items, to get inspired to create.

Since you will start to put plenty into your mind, try to take some of what you now store and create something you have never tried before. If you paint, then try taking singing lessons. Experiment like this and you may find a new source of creativity, you never knew was inside you.

Most people have a negative voice inside of their heads. They listen to it daily and some even have a name for that voice because it is part of their daily lives. To be the best creative you, it is imperative to take that negative voice and teach it the art of constructive criticism.

How you talk to yourself is how you see yourself. When you call yourself stupid, because you left out part of your creative project and now it’s in the garbage can… you are going to have more days where you make critical mistakes. Instead, you should build the habit of talking to yourself as you would a small child. Offer yourself constructive criticism and ask questions such as, “What did I learn. How can this benefit me in the long run?”

Also, frame the criticism so that you acknowledge the big mistake but take responsibility for it and know that mistakes/failures are normal and you grow from them.

You need the daily habit of focused thinking, plus the use of diffused focus. Diffused focus occurs while you are doing the mundane things in life. An example of this, is doing the dishes with enough focus that you can complete the task and not cut yourself on a knife, while allowing your mind to search creativity thoughts in your head.

A fun way to think of it, is to pretend you have the ability to probe other minds by sending out search signals, while washing dishes. You can make connections to abstract thoughts while you work away doing the household tasks that are awaiting.

Break the habit of waiting for the creative muse fairy to show up and sprinkle you with inspiration. You’ve definitely heard of those people who aren’t getting the book written, the picture painted or the advertising done for their business, because the muse has not shown up.

Wondering how to have a daily muse, without wondering when it will strike? The answer is daily action. Write something everyday, either a journal, diary, or even work on your fiction/non-fiction. Stay away from mood altering substances. In reality, they hinder your creativity and productivity. Read something everyday, except the newspaper. When you wake up in the morning, grab a book on inspirational quotes or a piece of fiction that really challenges how you see the world. When you read for 20-30 minutes at least per day, you are building the habit of feeding your mind. Think how positive you would be if you gave up the news and read quotes by famous Romans, like Marcus Aurelius or Seneca.

Get into the daily habit of being more playful. Society today has become very serious and we are slowly losing the ability to see the world through the eyes of children. Too many people turn to stimulants to help them laugh and release stress.

Being playful will not only relieve stress but it will also help your creative thinking. As an adult, you might find it strange at first to work on being playful but the benefits are huge, so don’t ignore this. Wondering what to do?

There are many things and first of all, you must let go of inhibitions. What other people think of you, does not matter. It matters how you feel about yourself. So skip down the sidewalk, the next time you go to the corner store, or walk at a brisk pace and sing the song, “Don’t Worry. Be Happy,” by Bobby McFerrin. Dancing of any sort, can be a joyful thing to do.

Make it a daily habit to do a little dance in the kitchen while you prepare your food. There are many types of games that can be very playful and a great way to get happy or even relieve a bit of stress. Try playing ping pong and have fun trying to put spins on the ball. Paddle ball is another fun thing to do. All you need is a paddle like the ping pong paddle and a ball that is just a bit bigger. Find any wall, at a school yard or the side of your garage and just have fun. You could put a target on the wall and try to hit the target as much as you can.

The whole idea is to use your imagination and learn to play again. This will do wonders for any creative output you need.

Do you have a spare 15 minutes a day? Of course you do and there is a perfect way to fill in that 15 minutes. Writing your memoir can accomplish many things. First up, you will remember and write down the most creative phase in your life. It might be your teen age years, long past. Ideas of creativity that you had, will come back to you. While writing your memoir, your creative juices will be flowing. As we age, we start to think about what we will leave behind. Writing your memoir is a great way for the generations to come, to know and love you.

Sit down and come up with a plan. The idea is not to write about your life from the time you walked through the doors in grade one, right up to the coffee you are drinking now. Instead you want to focus on a period of time or events. If you are doing a time period, it might be your university days when everything was amazing. You were finally out on your own and able to be you.

The great thing about memoirs, is you get to decide everything, from what the timeframe is, how you want to describe your life and those around you and what really moved you in those days. Remember, this is all yours, so in the end, if you want to just keep it for yourself, you can.

There is a time to plan and a time to be spontaneous. Develop the habit of being spontaneous wherever you can. Instead of overthinking everything, work on just doing something without thinking about it. Break into a dance while in the grocery store or wake up Saturday morning and just hit the road. Driving without a destination is really fun.

You have no idea where you are headed or what you will see. While on the road, you will certainly see things that will give you creative ideas. Just doing this at the spur of the moment, puts the brakes on that rigid part of your life. If you have children, they will love this part of you, especially if you announce out of the blue that dinner tonight will be, “frosted flakes and pop tarts, with a side of chocolate milk.”

There is also a time for solitude. Create the habit of digital detox in your life. You have so much coming at you and usually at high speed. Your social media and television have a constant message of, “do this, don’t do that, be this, look, look at me.” To recharge your body and your brain, takes habit and commitment.

Sunday is a day you could pick for digital detox. It doesn’t have to be for religious reasons unless that is your lifestyle. You can still make Sunday a day of solitude and reflection on what is good in your life. Taking a solitude break will recharge your creativity.

Remember that experts say, taking a good solid three days without your cellphone or other products, will reset your body. During that time, you should be outdoors at the beach or a beautiful park. Go barefoot to reconnect with the energy from the earth. This is essential for creatives.

Meditation should be a daily habit. Not only will it help clear your negative thoughts, it can help with creativity. In fact, studies have shown mindfulness meditation is huge for your creativity.

There are different parts of your brain that benefit from mindfulness. Our brains have developed over hundreds of thousands of years. Our essential brain back in the cave dwelling days, was our reptile brain. This portion only concerned itself with fighting, fleeing or sexual reproduction and it is sluggish when it comes to anything else. Then we have the limbic which deals with our emotions and memories of our lives. This portion of our brain is working more than it did thousands of years ago due to the stress of day lives.

Mindfulness can work to get past these two portions of the brain, so that it doesn’t block creativity which takes some work. It opens the way for our neocortex, which is recently new in comparison to the reptilian portion of our brain. Our neocortex is where we do our creative thinking and the problem-solving issues we face. Get in the habit of mindfulness and mindfulness meditation daily to have peak creative thinking.

Have you ever seen Curious George the stuffed monkey? Well he is a great reminder that monkeys are very curious about everything, as we should be too. It wouldn’t hurt to have a Curious George monkey on the corner of your desk to remind you to be curious and explore everything around you and afar, to help ramp up your creativity button.

Be curious and watch documentaries, read good books and listen to audio presentations that teach you things you’ve never thought of before. Being curious is how many great artists did their best work.

How is your self-confidence? Unless you can give yourself a five-star rating, you need to make it a daily habit to work on your self-confidence. When you are confident, you won’t be afraid to try new creative ideas that may not work and then you know that you can try again until you find what does work. Not being confident means you are likely not to try new things and perhaps even be prone to giving up.

Work daily on your attitude. Be in the habit of asking yourself daily, “what is my mindset today and do I need to adjust?” Your creative attitude is an offset of what your beliefs about are. What you believe about yourself and the world around you, affects how you create. By working on your vision of what is to come in terms of creation, you set yourself up for success.

Daily affirmations are a habit we should all have. Repeating your affirmations on who you are, what you believe in and what you will do to create, will strengthen the bonds in your brain. Your brain will do as you command but it is essential that you repeat daily what you expect of yourself, in order for your brain to settle down and make it come true for you.

We all have different ranges of certain emotions. We try to avoid certain emotions because of how uncomfortable they make us feel. While being constantly depressed is a terrible thing, occasional sadness is normal. You should get in the habit of using those bouts of sadness, to help you in your creative process. When it happens, acknowledge it, use it and tell it to pass.

Many great songs, novels and works of art come out of a feeling of sadness regarding an incident. Your habit of understanding all your emotions and how to make them work to your advantage will go a long way not only in life but in your creative pursuits.

Fear is another emotion we have frequently. You can develop the habit of using fear to drive your creativity. When you fear a creative idea, this means you need to drive forward and perhaps have the biggest breakthrough ever. When you fear something and do it anyway, the beneficial repercussions are awesome. Have the habit of saying to yourself, “I feel this fear of failing but I am going to push through because the greatest rewards will be on the other side.”

Doing the hardest task first, is an essential part of productivity in business. The same thing applies to your creative process. When you start your day, think of what the hardest task you have to accomplish for the day might be. Then be sure to do that task first.

For writers, it might be editing. Trimming and editing a manuscript of what you believed is the most astounding thing ever written, is a hard task. But it must be done, in order to present your most polished work. The writers habit of editing first thing in the morning sets up the rest of the day for new creative ideas.

All creative endeavors take time. That doesn’t mean you should create 8-10 hours a day, without a break. Your best work will come, if you develop the habit of taking short breaks, combined with water, stretching and some fruit to snack on. Your brain needs to time to release ideas that won’t work and time to recharge.

Focus is a habit to work on and maintain. To be your best creative self, focus on one part of your project at a time and take breaks as mentioned above. Laser-focus, means that you do much better work as your mind is not trying to multi-task, which has been proven to be a negative thing. Only let your mind wander when you are doing the mundane, as mentioned before. Your best work will come when you give it full attention, and creativity habits will get you there.

Awesome news for you. Naps are now something you can do without feeling guilty. Research has shown that people who have a power nap for 30-40 minutes in the afternoon, will not only be more productive but their creativity will soar too. When you work in a business that requires creativity, you may need to find a spot for a quick power nap or speak to your supervisor. Go into to see them armed with the information on how the company will benefit from the practice of power naps. Many companies in Asia are doing this and some North America companies are starting to follow that model.

Creatives are not always social, in fact many of them can be introverts. While you do need that solitude, you also need to make room in your life for being with other likeminded people. Find other groups of people that you can spend a few hours a week with, in order to exchange ideas and motivational tips. You can find groups directly by using the keyword associated with what you do or head to Meetups in google. In Meetups, you will get a list of groups that get together to share common goals.

Getting out and seeing the world as much as possible is a habit you should form. There is so much to see in terms of creativity, whether it is art galleries, museums or even special buildings. Obviously, there are places in Europe that are a must see for creatives, like Italy and Spain. If budget is an issue, then don’t totally give up on travel.

There are most certainly cities within range of you, that have so much to offer. For example, have you heard of Salvador Dali, the surrealist painter? His largest and greatest work is not in Spain but Fredericton New Brunswick, Canada. It is 10 feet by 13 feet and called Santiago El Grande. It should be on your bucket list if you are an artist. You may well have some amazing things to see in your backyard, if you do a bit of research.

When you have a creative challenge and no matter what you do, you cannot find the solution, try visualizing the issue. Before you go to bed at night, relax and breathe deeply. Then start visualizing what your challenge is. When you sleep, you go through different levels of sleep. In one of the levels, your subconscious mind which is always working in the background 24/7, goes into hyperdrive trying to find the solution for you as it is programmed to do.

When you hit a total roadblock in a creative problem, just stop. Then start over and try seeing it from a different perspective. In fact, you can aim for the opposite of what you were trying to achieve, and a breakthrough may occur. This is similar to novel writing or even blog posts for your online business, where you write out the ending first and then go back and start the story. It gives you a totally new way of looking at your creativity problem. Develop the creativity habits of halting and restarting with renewed energy.

I’m author, publisher, and entrepreneur Connie Ragen Green and would love to connect with you. If you are new to the world of online entrepreneurship please check out my comprehensive training on how to set up Funnels That Click and learn how to gain an unfair advantage when it comes to building a lucrative online business.