How to develop a creative mindset?
Creating something that you are truly passionate about, is not an overnight task. It can take days, months or even years. But it certainly helps if you are in the right mindset to create, a mindset that lets you adapt and change as well as your work, this is otherwise known as a creative mindset, but it doesn’t come naturally to some people, so here are some tips to how to develop one:
Be patient – Now I know this may seem a bit obvious at first, but let me explain. When I say be patient I’m not talking about being patient with hearing back from people or even creating your product. I mean be patient with yourself. When you are creating you are going to get criticism that may hurt, be asked to redo a piece of work or a scene and be faced by the biggest enemy of all creatives: Artistic block also known as Writer’s block. As described by James Clear ‘Creativity is a process, not an event’ A process takes time and experience and one of the important steps is to acknowledge that time and be patient.
Reflection as a key to transformation- Reflection is important when being creative. Sometimes when you do a piece of work you will think the first draft is outstanding, then come back to it a few days later and have a whole new perspective on it. When having a creative mindset it’s important to be a reflective practitioner. A reflective practitioner is someone who can consider their actions/work/processes and look at ways to improve it for next time. An example of this could be sending a draft of an essay to a teacher and then getting feedback on how to improve it. It’s not necessarily an easy thing to do for some people (especially any fellow perfectionists!). But reflecting on successes and failures and being able to make rationale and informed decisions comes with experience, mainly from trial and error. This experience picks up pace in Higher Education as you receive more and more critical feedback and we have to find ways to digest that maturely and become adaptable.
Surround yourself with inspiration and confidence – A lot of what inspires creative work is what is around us. This can come from real life events going on in the world or from our personal life experiences. Creativity at its core is the ultimate form of self expression. Some of the best creative solutions come from the creators’ experiences they were going through when they made that piece of work. As well as this, places can also cause inspiration such as art galleries and cinemas. Whatever it is that inspires you, surround yourself with it, absorb it. That way you will always have at least one idea floating in your head. In hand with this, you have to be confident in your work. If you’re not confident it is the best you can do it won’t be as good, it doesn’t have to be the most original as long as you’re confident that it is expressing what you intend it to.
Nurture your mindset – Finally, the last major piece of advice I can give you on how to develop your creative mindset is to never become placid. Yes it is important to take breaks once in a while. However, you should always be keeping your mind active and engaged, as that is how you get ideas for projects and can approach problems from a new angle. Rawzaba Alhalabi from the Potential suggests these activities to help nurture your mindset. ‘Playing: Trying to play and be funny at times gives you the chance to manipulate the given problem according to what you need. Daydreaming: Wondering about things related to your project frees your mind to expand its horizons and explore new ways out there. Reading: Going to the library and spending hours reading can nurture your imagination and grow a strong creative thinker.’ Additional activities I can suggest you do are Painting, Writing, Gaming, Playing board games and sharing ideas with friends and colleagues.
Overall, the core things you need to focus on to develop your creative mindset are patience, reflection, surrounding yourself with inspiration, being confident and nurturing what you have. But you don’t have to start doing all these things at once, it’s important to go at your own pace and start to integrate these steps bit by bit. Below are links to websites that helped me identify and define what a creative mindset is:
https://www.nytimes.com/guides/year-of-living-better/how-to-be-creative
Written by Alex Ockenden