5 Simple Ways to Become More Creative; Boost Confidence & Add Value
Art, freedom and creativity will change society faster than politics — Victor Pinchuk
Releasing creativity empowers you to shift from consumer to creator. Once you begin to create value you will begin exchanging this value for money. It’s a resource to use as you choose. We could all dedicate more energy to increase our creativity, because humans need to create things. It’s part of human nature; it’s part of who we are.
Did you know that daydreaming provides a mental incubation period, enhancing creative thinking, long-term planning, and self-awareness?
I used to daydream regularly when I was younger. My mind would wander. I imagined scenarios that were so much fun. But I felt guilty because I was supposed to be in reality when I was imagining and creating, daydreaming in my mind. Being guilty is a waste of your mental resources, I have found. Now without any guilt, with confidence, and in the excitement, I regularly daydream. Daydreaming is a way to practise releasing creativity. Let your mind wander.
1. Schedule regular daydreaming sessions every single day, and you’ll start to discover how creative you really are. Then write down what you daydream about. This way, you will start to practise releasing your creativity, therefore empowering you to shift from consumer to creator.
You’ll start to imagine and use your powerful imagination to think of ideas, new ideas that could provide great value to yourself and other people. Personally and commercially.
Also, focus on your five senses whilst daydreaming. Touch, taste, smell, sight, hearing. So in turn think about at least two things connected to each sense. For example, touch two things nearby. It could be a cup of water. It could be a pen. Then move to taste. Drink a glass of water and taste a juicy green apple. Then smell what two things your sense of smell detects. Now sight. What things immediately draw your eyes’ attention? Hearing. What two things are you hearing right now?
You are releasing creativity by scheduling daydreaming sessions and focusing on your five senses and not being guilty about daydreaming. You’ll provide your imaginative mind and your powerful unlimited imagination with an important incubation period, therefore releasing creativity and empowering you to shift from consumer to creator.
You will create. You are creative.
You’ll be able to create value, which can be exchanged for money. Have you ever thought about starting your own business? Think of the possibilities!
Releasing creativity is a critical part of building confidence with respect to your psychology. Confidence and psychology relates strongly to creativity. Being creative and practising creativity in releasing your creative potential is hugely beneficial to building confidence and creating value in your life and in other people’s lives, for your lifestyle and also for business and commercial aspects too. So there are definitely benefits to releasing your creativity.
Biopsychology is a part of psychology that focuses and stems from the brain and biological sections and ideas and frameworks with respect to psychology. Releasing creativity through tried-and-tested methods of neuroscience and behavioural neuroscience which adds scientific weight to your neurophysiology, your brain system, your thinking, and various molecular structures in your brain, and how that relates to your creativity.
Another benefit of releasing creativity is a focus on your RAS. It’s your reticular activating system. It’s a filter in your brain that filters all extraneous stimulus and information, because there are millions of bits of information vying for your attention as you go about your day. Your brain simply cannot handle all the information out there. So the reticular activating system acts as a set of, let’s say, traffic lights. It lets in certain bit of information, to be processed in your brain. So green light in, red light out. For example, you’re walking down the street, and there’s lots going on in the busy outside shopping mall or high street. There’s lots of different noises, people talking, a helicopter going past, lots of advertising lights, and flashing cars going past.
What your reticular activating system does is, it filters out all the other bits of information. This will be focusing on absorbing the relevant information at the time. For example, to keep you safe and make sure you’re not walking out into the street, you can hear cars and a wealth of other important information. So with releasing creativity with respect to psychology and neuroscience, there are certain solutions that can help you as a strategy to improve your creativity. Before we do that, I will let you in on a few secrets of nature to give you a contrast of the reticular activating system in humans and then in nature.
Have you heard of the mantis shrimp? It is an absolutely magnificent creature. Why? Because compared to humans, what it can do is, it can absorb thousands and thousands of pieces of information all at once into its brain without processing it first, compared to humans, where with the reticular activating system we have, we can only process maybe one or two pieces of information at once before it gets absorbed into the brain. Conversely, the mantis shrimp can, without processing, absorb hundreds, if not thousands, of pieces of data at once. An amazing creature.
How do we improve our creativity? How do you practise creativity, and how do we release creativity, most importantly to build confidence?
2. Language.
Your language is massively important in creating creativity. How is language? What comes out of your mouth, the words, phrases, the tone — all have an effect and influence on your creativity and therefore your confidence.
The words you use are a representation of your thought processes, and if you use terms like ‘I’m an idiot’, that acts as a command to your brain, to your mind. Through the reticular activating system, it’s filtered into your brain as a command.
And with that language, ‘I am an idiot’, you’ll start to believe it, and with repetition, that can have damaging effects on your confidence, on your creativity, on your emotional state, and on your physical state. So your language is massively important.
Be mindful of what language you use. Ask people to keep you accountable for what language you use with yourself and with others. Reframe your language. Use positive language — for example, ‘I am intelligent. I am intelligent. I am intelligent.’ Repeat it.
Repetition is the mother of skill, so repeat, repeat, repeat the language you use. It is massively important to building creativity.
3. Physiology.
How you use your body affects your creativity in your mind. If you feel tired, for example, you can, in fact, kick tiredness by literally jumping, performing ten star jumps. Get your heart pumping, get your body moving, and it changes your mindset. It changes your body and psychology, and it changes you by adjusting your physiology.
By jumping up and down, for example, that will create energy in your mind, and the amount of energy that you can release is incredible, beyond what you think. For example, if you say ‘I am a marathon runner. I commit to running a marathon.’ Usually, 99 percent of people who say ‘I commit to running a marathon’ do it. They actually do it. And physiology for starting to run, starting to jump up and down, it trains your mind to release energy to be focused on what you need to do. So instead of it coming from your mind first, it comes from your physiology first, which is strong.
Focus on your language, your physiology, your reticular activating system, and your mindset changes your state so you can go from an apparent tiredness to massive energy. All that it takes is a little switch in your physiology and having focus on your language, and this all helps release creativity, release energy, and most importantly, build confidence — a great foundation of confidence. And did you know that people who are open to new experiences are more creative than others who are not?
Be open to new experiences. If someone asked you ‘Would you like to go for a run?’ and your immediate thought was ‘No, I’m not a runner’, how about giving it a go? You could even start with a short walk. It will change your physiology, it will change your state, and there are massive benefits to it. You might even have your million-dollar idea while still running.
Also, did you know that loss and trauma can have creative effects? If your mindset is one of gratitude for having loss and trauma in your life, it shifts your perspective on your life. It’s called post-traumatic growth. Building resilience and ultimately confidence in the process.
4. Less is more.
Less is more is important because releasing creativity doesn’t have to always be adding things. By doing less and removing or omitting things, you help to simplify your creativity. Being mindful of this will help your unique creative process now and into the future. It will reduce any perceived pressure to add extra. So, less is more. Important because ‘simplicity is the ultimate sophistication’ Doing nothing can sometimes be the best course of action. Do less.
Did you know that by focusing on less you increase clarity. Clarity is power.
I used to overthink. I still do a bit. I am definitely improving. But, once I began to simplify my ideas I’d become more confident in executing them and making my creations a reality. I’ve written this!
5. Create habits
Daily habits that will improve the likelihood of you getting into a great habit of being creative and practising creativity, where you don’t even have to think about it. For example, going back to the shower, every time you have a shower, but taking a notepad not into the shower, it’ll get wet! Put it out to the side so that it prompts you to get your creative juices flowing.
Once you’ve repeated this for about two weeks you’ll develop a habit that sticks. It’ll be like brushing your teeth daily, we can start to create a great habit. I’ve been creative by putting that trigger in place, whether it’s putting out a pen and pencil and pad down by the side of your bed or in the bathroom before you have a shower or before you go to sleep creates that trigger. So start to get into a great habit of being creative.
Creativity is building something, creating something, linking two initially disconnected ideas or thoughts into one. So creating something new, something innovative, something imaginative from your imagination. Being creative by linking two separate ideas or items from your mind together to create something completely brand new and innovative.
What will you create today, and how confident will you feel afterwards?
Thank you for reading!
Please feel free to also read: Why Commit to Lifelong Learning?
Adapted from Confide: The New Psychology of Confidence. How to Power Up after Experiencing Depression
