Creativity is an indispensable ingredient not only for artbut also for any successful business. It’s the mother of innovation, thecornerstone of your R&D. That’s why, whether you’re a solopreneur or abusiness leader with employees, nurturing creativity in yourself and your teamis an excellent strategy for staying competitive on the market.

In reality, finding new ways to market your business,interact with customers, or improve your products & services will nothappen without someone coming up with a new idea, capturing it and takingaction.

And the good news is that despite the common belief, creativity is not a gene that some of us have and some don’t. We all have it expressing is in many different ways. Just as we talked about it in last week’s post.
Better yet, according to Robert Epstein, American psychologist, professor, author, creativity is something that can be nurtured and cultivated by anyone.

For this reason this week, I’d like to share with you 5 Tips to Boost Your Creativity and Capture the Next Big Idea.

1. Take Time toThink

We covered the 4 Ts mantra last week. However, I’d like to add a bit to this point.

When our days are packed with meetings, e-mails, and othertasks heavy with mental demands, they overload prefrontal cortex part of thebrain. All these drain and distract us cognitively. On the contrary, most ofour “A-HA’s” moments come during a quiet break. Why? Because when we go for awalk, take a shower or even stare at a piece of art, the prefrontal cortexquiets down, and our default imagination mode gets turned on.

Additionally, by "Time To Think," I also meantaking time to rest during vacation, weekends, as well as getting enough sleep.No million-dollar idea will come to us if we are overworked, stressed and onthe verge of burn out.

Moreover, spending some this rest time in nature awakens our sense of awe and fascination with its beauty. And when our brain is in such a beautiful state, our creativity flourishes even more. If you're interested to learn more about this research, click here.

2. Spend Time withDiverse Interesting People

Meeting regularly with a diverse and exciting network ofpeople can open your horizons and help you come up with new inspiring ideas.Couple that with going together to exciting places such as art gallery, museum,or opera, and such experiences will stimulate your creative thinking in waysyou couldn’t have imagined.

Furthermore, being around people and feeling connected getsrid of the number one killer of creativity, i.e., stress. It's also fun and makes us feel happy. And asmuch as sadness can be a fuel in artistic creativity, in business, it’s aninhibitor to novel ideas as well.

So, don’t wait, go out there and spend some time with your friends and the broader network. And if you don’t have one yet and not sure how to go about it, click here for some tips.

3. Take OnChallenging Projects

Challenging projects that don’t have an easy solution getour brains thinking and looking at things from different perspectives. For thisreason, don’t dismiss any of the ideas you had as not possible to put intopractice. Try to work on them instead. Better yet, brainstorm such projectswith other people. Tapping into theirexperience, a different outlook on things can consequently generate morefantastic ideas. And since you are going to take my advice from point 2 above,finding great partners for brainstorming shouldn’t pose any problems to youanymore 😊.

4. Broaden YourKnowledge

Expanding horizons past your area of expertise will alsostimulate your brain for creative thinking. Taking a course to learn a newskill, reading books or magazines from unrelated domains will broaden yourknowledge and allow for the brain to “interconnect” all this newknowledge. Such interconnections are thebasis of all creative thought i.e., new ideas emerging from bits and pieces ofeach discipline you dive into.

5. Always Be Readyto Capture Your Ideas

Once you get your creative juices going, you need to be ready to capture everything you come up with so that it doesn't escape your memory. My favorite method is writing my thoughts down. Hence, carrying a journal with you is one but not the only way to do it. Note app on your phone, typing ideas on your laptop, or even a proverbial napkin will work as well.

To summarize, boosting our creativity is not only good for business. It's also good for us.

If you look at all the above tips and think about it, implementing them will also help you improve the overall quality of life and happiness. And isn’t it how it should be in the first place? Our professional and personal life are our life as a whole? Isn’t it when one overshadows the other then somehow we don’t feel fully satisfied?

At least this is what I believe. Our "personal and professionalselves," with everything that goes into us, make us full wholeheartedpeople who can be creative and make a positive difference in the world. For thisreason, my mission is to inspire and enable you as a business leader to buildmission-driven, people-oriented, and healthy organization that brings value toyour customers and helps you lead a holistic fulfilled life.

So, if you need anyone to brainstorm your next innovative idea, I’m here to help. Click here to schedule a free Brainstorming Session with Maggie 😊.