MINDSET

There is a misunderstanding that only people working in creative fields, including art, design, film, advertising, etc., need to be creative. And creativity is an ability that only these people above have and need to improve at all times.

Creativity — is essential to everyone.

Naturally, we were born to create, and it is truly a survival skill. Creativity enables us to resolve problems, fulfill needs, and make both material and spiritual values.

• In retail, Creative can be about finding a way to make the product more eye-catching.
• In business, Creativity can be about finding ways to adapt to the changing marketplace.
• In engineering, Creativity can be about designing and solving technical problems.

It’s hard to maintain our creativity; great ideas pop up sometimes. But shifting mindset and some good habits can develop our creative ability.

Be eager to learn like Santiago.

In Paulo Coelho’s book “The Alchemist,” the shepherd Santiago always sees the world with the mindset of an avid learner.

He thinks that anything in the world can teach him something:

• The sheeps taught him that without dreams, humans would be like animals that only eat and sleep.
• The job at the crystal store taught him that instead of passively accepting the events of his life as a victim, he could embrace the experience and move forward purposefully. From there, to become an explorer.
• The desert taught him more about the importance of noticing the goals.

At the end of the story, Santiago finds his treasure and grows much more mature because of his thinking.

The eager-to-learn mindset starts from thinking that there are always lessons around. Thus, bring the mind to a state of readiness to recognize them when the signs of the lesson appear.

Stay curious and self-question to find answers on your own.

“Millions saw the apple fall, but Newton was the one who asked why” — Bernard Baruch

Having an eager-to-learn mindset is not enough; we have to nurture it, and there is nothing like curiosity in every person. Curiosity keeps our mind moving, always hungry to learn new things.

Without curiosity, when new ideas emerge, they will slip through our minds because we are not ready to acquire them.

Even if we fail, curiosity helps us analyze our failures because we want to know the reason. And thanks to that, we can do better next time.

But curiosity is not about asking questions and then waiting for someone to give you answers. It is a bad habit I gave up in my 21,000-hour design journey.

Try to find the answers by yourself first, and then seek support later.

Don’t just look; observe.

Observation is a way of seeing things and phenomena in a detailed and analytical way. Observing is aiming at and serving a clear purpose, direction, and intention. The difference between observing and seeing is attention. Without it, we only see things around us randomly and unconsciously.

When we build the habit of observing, it will help us broaden our worldview, and at the same time, we can memorize and string out things well. From there, we realize the nature of the problem and work better towards solving it.

Experiment with more in-depth.

The in-depth experience involves spending more time and concentration on each step of the process of a given experience.

For example, you like to drink coffee. You may want to manually grind coffee beans, mix with hot water, pour a little milk, stir and enjoy the changing color instead of visiting plenty of coffee shops or taste different types of coffee there.

We can find a ton of cool stuff for ideas to emerge from the things we do every day with just a bit more attention.

Draw or write your thoughts down.

I don’t need to say much about it.

When we write or draw, we begin to organize messy thoughts in our heads more logically. It is often known asDisplayed-Thinking. It significantly improves the flow of thinking and helps us to discover or memorize ideas better.

Every time a keyword or sentence comes to mind that can develop into a topic for the article, I have the habit that every time a keyword or sentence comes to mind. I’ll take notes right away on my phone, and over time I’ll have a list of ideas for writing.

Read, read more.

It is not necessary to just read all the books. We can read novels, short stories, poems, or Medium, etc.

Things like film and video don’t help us develop our creativity because the visible part inadvertently assigns that built-in creativity to our thoughts.

If you had seen the dragon and the mountain with your own eyes, then why do you have to think about how giant a dragon is?

Then after a while, we wonder why we are having trouble finding such ideas. The mind is like a muscle, it needs exercise, but we often ignore our mental health over physical health. When reading, the brain receives words and then manipulates heaps of memories, knowledge, and imagination to process them into images. Consequently, reading habits will help beautify our creativity.

Plus, it also has many other benefits: increased concentration, knowledge base, stress relief, confidence, communication skills, etc.

Besides these habits, there are still other habits like Getting up early, Daydreaming, Meditating… perhaps most good habits can help our creativity bloom. Hopefully, once you’ve identified the habits that affect your creativity, take them more seriously.