How to Develop a Creative Mindset for Life
Do you wish to live a more fulfilling life? A life led by experiencing joy daily rather than the pursuit of happiness? If so, you’ve come to the right place. In this article I will offer ideas on how to develop a creative mindset for life through curiosity, mindfulness, faith in your creative self and habit. Let’s dive in!
Practise Curiosity to Nurture a Creative Mindset
The first step in developing a creative mindset is being curious. Curiosity will lead you off the beaten track, it will surprise and delight you and take you to the brink of discovery. These are all experiences that creativity thrives upon.
Have you ever found yourself collecting seashells or unusual stones on a beach? Each tantalising new find leading you onto the next. Suddenly, when you look up, an hour has passed and if you’ve been lucky your pockets are filled with treasures to take home.
Initial interest and curiosity are what led you to the trove that weighs down your pockets. Now for the creative part: figuring out what you will do with these treasures. By adopting these items, you have breathed new life into them, giving them a new purpose. Whether it’s displaying them on a shelf, putting them in a glass jar, or using the stones as paper weights. An act as simple as this is an act of creation. You can replace the hunt for pebbles by anything else that tickles your interest.
Follow your curiosity wherever it may lead you. Trust it’ll uncover something new and delightful, and you will come away with fuel to feed your creativity every single time. Even if you think you’ve ended up empty-handed – you were rummaging through a box of second-hand books, didn’t find anything, but you spotted a beautiful watering can on the next-door stall. It may not be what you were expecting, but it serves a creative purpose none the less: sustaining your potted plants and embellishing your home.
Engage in Mindfulness to Cultivate Your Creative Outlook
What fuels curiosity is awareness. Being aware there is something shiny on the ground. Noticing the sound of an unusual bird song and looking up to find out what bird is producing such a melody. Tasting an unknown ingredient in a meal and asking the cook what it is. Picking up the scent of a flower on your way home from dropping off the children at school and stopping to smell the blossom.
You can only engage in your curiosity if you have picked up these external sensory callings. But how can you, if you are lost in thought, planning the day ahead or playing out a conversation you need to have later that day with a client?
To ensure that you don’t miss these external callings that would interest you had you noticed them, you must practise mindfulness. This is a very simple exercise. All you need to do is engage with your senses. Come out of your head and back into your body. Take a sniff of the morning air on your way to work. That alone will invite you to look up at the sky, notice the starlings swooping from one tree top to the next. You’ll then notice their squawky chatter and wonder how it was possible that a moment before you couldn’t hear it! Take it all in for a full sensory experience of the now. See how it brings you joy.
You can’t practise mindfulness all day every day. But you can decide on one instant during your busy day where you engage all your senses and keep this practice daily. Five minutes on your lunch break, walking the children to school, when you take your dog for a walk, in the shower, wherever. Just make sure you do it every day at some point.
Besides the fact that you’ll feel alive and energised, you will give your curiosity a chance of picking up on cues from the outside world. You can then follow those cues with the curious mind that you now know feeds your creative mindset.
Have Faith in Your Creative Self
You may have doubts as to how being curious will amount to anything creative. Sure you can prick your ears up, keep your eyes wide open and make sure you’re tuned in to the wonders of being alive, but how does that tangibly affect your creativity?
Before I offer a possible answer to that question, I must clarify what I mean by Creative. I feel that many times, people need to be reminded that we are all gifted with creativity. As long as our hearts are beating, we create. We give life to ideas, we make meals, we grow plants, we make babies, we decorate our homes. We use our creativity every time we solve a problem. The simple action of living is an act of creation. We simply need to remember that, in order for it to become a mindset.
Once we have that creative mindset installed, once we’re aware of our creative self, we can tap into it. We can draw energy from it. We have a safeguard against tough times, we can battle depression, we can cope with grief. It is the most wonderful and magnificent tool at our disposal as humans.
So when you doubt, remember this: you were made to create, it’s in your DNA. Creativity doesn’t belong to a select few. If you still have doubts, I have an entire article coming out about why everyone is creative. (You can get a reminder when it’s published by signing up for my newsletter if you like.)
I digress! The question was how does following your curiosity tangibly affect your creativity? It feeds it. You now know you are a creative being – without having to be a painter or a craftsman or an artist of any kind. And a creative being needs to be fed, needs to be inspired. What will I cook for my family this week? I’m bored with the same old same old. I wonder if that video I saw of that guy making that thing is easy to do.
That need for change and novelty, and the curiosity to go after it leads straight to making something or trying something new. Renewal, like the change in season, is the biggest act of creation there is. Bringing something new into being. And we all need it. It’s part of the cycle of life, part of our rhythms.
So keep your senses sharp, your curiosity alive and kicking, have faith in this process and in yourself, and you will keep bringing new things into life day after day after day. You will be in a constant and aware state of creating.
Develop a Creative Mindset for Life Through Habit
Now that we have established these fundamentals, now that you know creativity is your birth right, you don’t want to forget. You don’t want to slip back into the old ways of not paying attention, of being on autopilot and missing out on what makes living so exciting. That’s where habit comes in. Habit is the key to keep developing a creative mindset for life.
In order to create a habit, you need to keep track of it at first. Write it down, create a chain of ticks, after a while you won’t be able to break it even if you want to. Especially not when it feels so good!
So what habits are you putting into place?
Practising curiosity every day.
Start with an interest, something you enjoy, and dig. If you like cooking, once a week, try something new. And get your children to participate! Or if you haven’t found what interests you yet, just dive in, try anything you think you might like. And then try something else! Don’t go for your usual walk, take a different turn, just to see what’s around that corner.
Engaging in mindfulness.
Don’t be a robot! Don’t let that be your default mode. It’s the biggest block to attaining a creative mindset. So every single day – I mean it, don’t miss one day – pick a moment during that day where you engage in your senses in full consciousness. Take your time, don’t miss a thing, fine-tune yourself to the outside world. It’s amazing what one can pick up on.
Having faith.
You are part of a bigger creative plan, that of Nature – or God depending on where you’re coming from. Trust your creative role in it every day. Follow your creative urges, whether it’s to pick or buy a bunch of flowers for the kitchen table or plant a bulb.
Once you get the ball rolling, you won’t look back. And if you need a little help at first, leave yourself reminders everywhere:
Stop and smell the flowers
Look up at the sky
Take a deep breath
Open the window and listen to the birds
Stand barefoot in the grass
Enjoy every sip of your favourite drink
I hope this article has inspired you and given you food for thought. I believe a creative mindset is the key to living a more joyful and fulfilling life. So start developing your creative mindset today and enjoy the rest of your life now!
Let me know if this helps or if there are things you think I should add. I would love to hear from you!
