9 Ways to Unleash your Creativity as an Entrepreneur.
For entrepreneurs, creativity and innovativeness are crucial for business success. But a good number of entrepreneurs struggle with their creativity once in a while. Experts say that when your creativity seems to disappear it’s probably because of accumulated stress or being extremely busy.
Creativity sets you and your business apart. With creativity and innovativeness, you do things differently.
Most people associate creativity with artistry but creativity is not all about artistry.
Your creativity helps you come up with great solutions to your business problems and actually create opportunities during these problems. Creativity helps you move your business forward and improve your products or services and your team.
Getting your creative juices flowing benefits you, your business operations, and your team. There are so many ways to unleash your creativity as an entrepreneur and make your business great and make yourself a great entrepreneur and a great leader for your team.
Above all, creativity breeds inspiration which in turn breeds productivity, efficiency, and growth.
1.Get moving.
If you want to dream up big, get your creative juices flowing, come up with great ideas, you better stop sitting at your desk with your screen on your face all day.
This is not an effective setting to do all the above. Leave your desk and step away from work for a moment or two.
Numerous studies have shown that going for a walk even as short as 5-10 minutes stimulates your neurological pathways that breed creative thinking.
Practice taking breaks and clear your mind regularly during work blocks to create a mind space for good ideas.
2.Get rid of distractions when it’s time to work.
As an entrepreneur, your work time is very important for you and your business. This is for the basic reason of being the business owner and your team’s leader.
If you want to keep your creativity going, avoid distractions.
Most creatives say that being in a flow state which is commonly known as being in the zone helps them get their work done.
Allow yourself to be in a flow state when you are working. In a flow state, your concentration is at its best and your thoughts are at their best.
If you want to be at your best, get rid of anything and anyone that would interfere with your flow state.
Turn off notifications that are not important, put your phone on silent, etc. Find yourself a favorable environment away from obvious distractions especially if you work remotely most of the time.
On the other hand, researchers have said that a few things such as some sounds and music can boost your creativity as you work. Depending on the type of work you are doing and the type of person you are, you can incorporate some sounds or music to keep you in that flow state. Find what works for you.
3.Seek new experiences.
Our habits influence our experiences. Studies show that being stuck in the same habits and the same routines limit our thinking rooms.
To think differently and boost your creativity, you probably need a change in your habits and a break from your routine.
Retrieved from Entrepreneur.com, the more variety of input we engage with, the more our output – creativity – evolves. Consider interacting and having conversations with more and different people. Visit more and different places and experience different cultures.
Most of the time inspiration comes from the most unexpected places. Have the need to know more, see more, hear more, and experience more than you have.
With increased interactions and experiences, you increase your chances of coming up with great ideas.
4.Take mental breaks.
Your brain is powerful and it’s the main machine for your creativity. If you overwork your mind, it will definitely stop cooperating with you and go blank or back and forth.
You just can’t be creative with a burned-out brain.
Practice relieving your mind off work stress and constant work to allow time to refresh and serve you better.
You can decide to listen to a song, or watch a nice short video on YouTube or even listen to a podcast. When you go back to work, your mind will be fresh and in a better state to come up with ideas and solutions.
5.Write down your thoughts and your ideas.
There is something about ideas, some are quick to come up with, some just cross your mind and they are easily forgotten.
It can be so frustrating to come up with an amazing idea and then completely forget it. And, this happens most of the time.
If you keep finding yourself in this trap, your solution is a pen and paper.
Develop a habit of writing your ideas down on paper when you think of them or when they just seem to cross your mind. This way, you can easily go back to them when you need them.
Try to write them down when they are fresh. Even if an idea does not sound too good, write it down. You never know because later, you will find that your not so good idea was actually good.
With writing, you can easily go back to your ideas and thoughts and think them through and see which ones work.
6.Avoid overthinking.
Most people are big at overthinking and overanalyzing what they are doing. Now, this here will get you stuck and run your creative juices dry.
As an entrepreneur, you tend to overthink things when trying to come up with new ideas, and when trying to find solutions.
In such times, consider sharing your ideas and brainstorming them before deeming them as useless or undoable and throwing them away.
Don’t spend your time overanalyzing things. You might throw away a good idea or on the other hand, keep a stupid and senseless idea just because you wanted to make it useful.
7.Keep learning.
If you want to keep those creative juices flowing then you have to embrace learning. Make it your friend.
The more you learn, the more you know.
A good way to help you keep learning is reading. They say a great entrepreneur is a good reader.
Read something inspiring or read biographies and autobiographies of people you admire and people who move you.
Reading about successful and creative people stimulates your brain.
In your reads, you will definitely learn and pick up a lot and get to know what worked for creative people before. You will get to learn something from their successes or failures.
Gain more knowledge in your area of business and your industry. As they say, knowledge is power.
Go to networking events, interact with other entrepreneurs, and people who will jog your mind a little more.
8.Gather new ideas and listen to opinions.
In entrepreneurship, if you want to succeed, you cannot depend fully on your ideas and opinions.
A good number of the times when you feel like your mind is blank and can’t seem to get things moving forward, try gathering new ideas. Maybe your idea is just not fit at the moment and that’s why you are stuck.
Speak to people in and out of your business and see how they are thinking. Listen to their ideas, suggestions, and the opinions they have about your industry and other areas of interest to your business.
Another good way to be on the lookout for new ideas is the internet. Browse and learn what is happening in your industry and around your business.
In your interaction or your browsing, you never know how much you could gather that would make a positive U-turn for your business.
9.Avoid being a perfectionist.
When you focus on getting all the details right on everything, you rarely take time to think creatively.
Research shows that perfectionists tend to only see one solution around a problem.
With many problems and challenges to be solved in business, you will not think creatively about other solutions away from the ones you are thinking of and away from your comfort zone.
And when you are constantly worried about things turning out perfect, you will not give your mind the time and the space to be creative.
Share your ideas with others even before you feel it’s fully formed and work on improving them.
Therefore as an entrepreneur, if you want to get your creative juices flowing, avoid being a perfectionist.
Final Thoughts …
Once in a while in your entrepreneurship journey, you will feel stuck and feel like your creativity is disappearing.
As an entrepreneur, you value your creativity. You want to come up with new ideas, be inspired, and grow your business by improving its performance.
The key to staying creative is engaging in things that stimulate your mind and in things that bring inspiration.
There are so many other strategies to refresh yourself mentally and not all strategies will work for you. Experiment and know which work for you best.
