Cultivating Creativity

A Practical Guide to Unlocking Your Creative Potential

Creativity is a way of thinking, of looking at things, of experiencing, and operating. Although creativity may seem magical, a rare talent of a select few, creativity is, in fact, available to everyone.

In Cultivating Creativity, you will learn how to unlock your creative potential and develop your creative expression.

Through developing your creativity, you will become better at generating ideas and finding new perspectives. But, more importantly, with creativity, you will improve your capability to rise to the moment, to make the most of the potentials and demands of the present, and facilitate your ability to lead a full and rich life.

In Cultivating Creativity, you will learn many ways to foster your creative process and expression, including:

• Have Belief – When you think something is possible, it almost certainly is…especially good ideas.
• Research – Explore and lay the groundwork and understanding in subject areas to provide a richer substrate for ideas to grow.
• Flow – Let ideas come to you naturally around a specific topic or topics. The more you spark your creativity, the brighter it will burn.
• Get out of your way – Learn how to let creativity happen. Be present, mindful, and creative.
• Nurture Dreams – Using the right approach, let going to sleep and dreaming lead to a wealth of new ideas.
• Be Flexible and Play – Learn to toy with and manipulate ideas and concepts, examining them from different angles and views, critical components of creative insight.
• Have Conversations – Indulge in engaged and informed discussion and debate, as powerful sources of new ideas.
• Relax – Let the mind generate ideas while you watch and guide the process. Or be mindless and let them come to you.
• Change Things Up – If you’re stuck in a rut, do something different! Recharge for new ideas.
• Be Passionate – Find what most excites and motivates you about a topic or idea and see where this interest leads.
• Have Internal Dialogue – If you love exciting, intellectual interplay with friends, family members, and co-workers, why not have one with yourself?
• Adjust Your State of Mind – Let new thoughts and ideas emerge naturally by learning to change your consciousness, your perspective, and how you feel. Experience events in new ways.
• Instigate Thought Experiments – Consciously explore new ways to look at and think about problems, concepts, and events, leading to new creative insights.
• Act Ridiculous - Get out of your comfort zone and put the bounds of normalcy and convention aside to look at things in new ways.
• Be Present – Being present helps fully appreciate and engage the moment and open yourself to creative possibility.

Taken singly or in combination, switched or applied consistently, these approaches will help foster and develop your creativity, nurturing your ability to react to and generate many possible responses to the moment. And, with greater possibilities in each moment and more positive outcomes, comes the potential for greater rewards and a richer life.

Choose creativity and begin creating!