5 Ideas You Need to Unlock Your Beginner Creativity
I avoided being creative for most of my life because I thought it was a talent you either had or didn’t.
I’ve spent the past 6 months trying to prove myself wrong. I wanted to find out the best ways to develop creativity as a beginner, and during my research I found the same advice come up again and again from the professionals. There’s a learnable technique to creativity that is a lot easier than you think.
In this article, I’ll explain through what I’ve found, and provide a simple framework so you can begin your creative journey.
1. Creativity Starts with Attitude
You’re only as creative as you let yourself be.
Your attitude towards your abilities defines them, and the fixed mindset stops you from making any reasonable progress for creating.
We get this from our experiences. Small events trigger a cascade of behaviours that lead to conditioned responses. These are protective mechanisms designed to help us avoid pain and discomfort. For the most part, they’re useless when it comes to developing skills.
I avoided creativity because my art teacher laughed at my project. I’d be more resentful but I did draw a cow with udder machine guns, so maybe she was right.
Before you start your creative journey, be ready to accept two things:
- You’re not that creative yet
- You can be with the right approach
2. Creativity Needs Curiosity
The best creative advice I’ve found comes from those at the top of their respective games. This includes writers, singers, dancers, coders, and marketing gurus. Creativity isn’t only about art class (ok, perhaps I’m still bitter, but how can you not like Supercow?).
These people have dedicated their lives to their craft, but rarely did they begin with talent. They began with curiosity.
Following curiosity will grow your creative ability much faster than if you were to choose an outlet that doesn’t resonate with you. Your interests are a powerful motivator, and fascination allows for flow states and deeper thoughts on the work you do.
You may not have the creative talent yet, but you have interests. Take these, and move from consumption to creation.
3. Create Creativity with Structure
As I set out to learn about creativity, I expected to read about mad artists with one ear, eccentric musicians biting heads off bats, and actors who spend more time in rehab than on the camera.
Instead, I found the opposite.
Creativity isn’t killed by structure but defined by it. Each of these people had a daily routine. Consider these words from James Clear:
“ No single act will uncover more creative genius than forcing yourself to create consistently. Practicing your craft over and over is the only way to become decent at it. “
Creativity is like slots at the casino. If you only play when you feel lucky, the chances of winning are low. But play every day and you’re bound to hit jackpots. Thankfully, with creativity, you don’t go bankrupt in the process. You only get better and better.
4. Instant Creativity is a Myth
In December 1958, Ray Charles was playing a 4-hour set with his band. There was one problem, with 15 minutes left to go they’d run out of material.
Charles knew if they stopped, they wouldn’t get paid, so he told the band to follow his lead and improvised the closing track. The result was “What I’d Say”, which was Rolling Stones 10th greatest song of all time.
As an outsider looking into the world of creativity, these stories are common - and misleading. Their remarkable nature leads to reporting bias. We only talk about the outliers.
World Heavyweight Champion Joe Frazier once said, “Champions aren’t made in the ring, they are merely recognized there”. The same is true for creativity. Ray Charlies may have recorded “What I’d Say” in 15 minutes, but he spent his whole life writing it.
If you want to create, be ready for a long-term commitment. Don’t hope for magical moments.
5. Creating Crap Is Part of the Process
Ira Glass, a popular US radio host, gave some of the best advice on early creativity:
“”Nobody tells this to people who are beginners, and I really wish somebody had told this to me. All of us who do creative work, we get into it because we have good taste. But it’s like there is this gap. For the first couple years that you’re making stuff, what you’re making isn’t so good. It’s not that great. It’s trying to be good, it has ambition to be good, but it’s not that good. But your taste, the thing that got you into the game, is still killer. And your taste is good enough that you can tell that what you’re making is kind of a disappointment to you. A lot of people never get past that phase. They quit.”
You have to be prepared to create crap to become brilliant. There’s a gaping canyon between amateur and professional, and if you’re focused on outcomes, closing it will be painful.
Take Chris Rock for example. His TV special Bring the Pain was widely regarded as one of the finest comedic performances of all time. It ran for 58 minutes, but he spent every night for 2 years in small clubs testing his material. We only see the perfected version.
Ed Sheeran explained in an interview that all his original material was awful to listen to. Referring to the creative process as a ‘dirty tap’ you have to run.
This is referred to as the creativity faucet. Your good ideas will come after the bad. Be prepared to run the tap.
Starting Your Creative Journey
There’s plenty of advice out there for creativity, but there’s one undisputed message: If you want to unlock creativity, you need to create consistently.
There are 4 stages to getting your creative juices flowing:
- Reframe your mindset
Be ready to fail and be prepared to grow.
2. Decide on a creative outlet
No one is watching, you can test out multiple ideas. Let your friends and partner suffer through your attempts.
3. Make a commitment
You have to be prepared to put in long term effort without reward. Commitments help with this. I vowed to release an article a week. There have been times where I’ve felt like giving up, but this has kept me on track.
You can commit to yourself, to your friends, or to the public. But make some form of commitment, it’ll help overcome resistance.
4. Build a system and create
Structure your creativity. Set aside a daily time where you can work undisturbed.
At first, it’ll be tough. Remember, you’re just running the tap. Keep to your schedule and your brain begins to make creative patterns in your work, You have new ideas, interesting outputs, and occasionally, you’ll hear a whisper of quality.
It might be an article, a paragraph, or a sentence. But there’ll be a point where you think: Hey, that was actually pretty good.
This is the first taste of clean water. Enjoy it. You’re stepping across the line from consumer to creator. The key is to stay in the game long enough so that your creative ability has no choice but to show itself in all its glory.
Enjoy the Process
Author Neil Gaiman said, “The world always seems brighter when you’ve just made something that wasn’t there before”. Creating each day is not only enjoyable, it gives meaning to life through purpose.
Discovering creativity might be a long haul, but the value in the journey of excellence is found in the process, not the end result. Make a commitment to discover your own and you’ll surprise yourself with what you can achieve.
