What do all creative people have in common?

It’s an oft-asked question, one especially troubling to those who aren’t feeling very creative. When you’re feeling blocked, and dull, it’s so easy to point to someone else and say, “Well, they’d get it, but they’re creative.” We often feel creative people have some invisible quality, perhaps something they were born with, that makes them especially able to come up with unique solutions to life’s problems.

Creative people do have common traits. Only, they’re not something creatives are born with. These creative powers are things you can instill in yourself by introducing certain habits or activities into your daily life.

In short, you can become more creative. How?

Daydream

It has been proven, people who daydream are more creative, and make more intuitive leaps in problem-solving. But which came first, the daydreaming or the creative abilities? What studies have shown is that the brain is incredibly active while daydreaming, especially in the areas where creativity and imagination are stored. This means spending time daydreaming is doing you a lot more good than you initially thought.

Need a tip to get started? Try cloud watching or star gazing. Look for shapes the way you did as a child and let your mind wander.

Observe

Everything is important. By observing the world around you, you are gathering information you might want to use later. You notice connections and how things come together. You give your mind the fuel to work with. This is such an easy thing to add to your day as all it involves is the ability to take note of what interests you. People watch, examine the minutiae and jot down the things that catch your attention most.

Need a tip to get started? Grab a notebook and a vantage point where you can see a certain level of activity, such as traffic or people walking by. Shamelessly eavesdrop as you watch. Write down the bits you find most interesting.

Set Your Own Schedule

Why are you still trying to live on a 9 to 5 schedule? By paying attention to your circadian rhythms, you start seeing the patterns of just which times are best for you to work. So if you’re a real morning person, try getting up earlier. A night owl? Change over to the night shift. Work only the hours which make the most sense for you.

Need a tip to get started? Try doing a complicated task in the morning, then again in the afternoon, and again in the evening such as working out a puzzle or doing something else requiring concentration. What time of day showed the best results? What time of day was it hardest to concentrate?

Be Quiet

Embrace solitude. Only when you give yourself quiet time to think, are you able to get in touch with your emotions and explore your thought processes fully. To act on this, you might want to explore meditation or mindfulness if you’re not used to being alone with your thoughts.

Need a tip to get started? Find a quiet place where you can be alone. Get comfortable and breathe deeply. Relax and open your mind to the possibilities.

Use Setbacks

Sometimes the hardest circumstances lead to the most fantastic growth. With this thought in mind, don’t be afraid to use the challenges you face, and the setbacks in your life as the launch pad for something amazing. Allow yourself to grow, embrace the lessons learned, and take that knowledge with you out into the world, as you explore new directions and fascinating possibilities.

Need a tip to get started? Think of a time when something went very wrong. Ask yourself what changed afterward? Did you look at the world differently? What did you learn from the experience?

Try New Things

Creative people don’t shy away from that which they haven’t experienced before, and neither should you. When something new comes your way, whether it’s a food you’ve never eaten or an experience you haven’t tried, embrace the experience. Sample absolutely everything.

Need a tip to get started? Try a new restaurant or even an old favorite and order something from the menu you’ve never tried before.

Fail Repeatedly

Stuff goes wrong. This is a hard fact of life. What are you going to do about it? Creative people don’t give up easily. When they fail, they dig in and try again. Nothing holds back a creative person.

Need a tip to get started? Ask yourself what’s something you’ve failed at before even if it’s small or silly like riding a bike or whistling. Go back and try that activity a second time. If you fail again, don’t worry about it. Just jump in and give it another go. The goal here is not to succeed (though if you do, good for you!) but to explore the freedom of letting go and trying something without the worry of possible failure.

Be Curious

Creativity is rooted in curiosity. Ask questions, lots of them. Find out how things work. Ask why people come together, and why some relationships work while others don’t. Explore everything. The bigger the question, the better. Once you have questions settled, go hunting for answers. Follow new questions as they arise and see where they lead you. You never know where you’ll end up.

Need a tip to get started? Visit a bookstore or library and browse the shelves in a section where you might not normally look at books, such as history or science. Flick through whatever catches your eye. Read a page or two and explore whatever makes you curious. If this seems daunting, check out the same topics in kids’ books and let the illustrations tease at your curiosity.

Observe Human Nature

More than just people watching, try studying what people do, endeavor to figure out the “why” of things. People who are creative put together actions and behaviors and seek to understand human nature.

Need a tip to get started? Visit a restaurant or coffee shop and watch people at the tables around you. Try to create a backstory for them. In your imagination, who are they? How is this group related to one another? What kinds of tensions lie between them? Imagine a story for your chosen target.

Take Risks

Creative people act with boldness. Why? Because you can’t be creative without being a risk-taker. After all, thinking of new ways to do things means abandoning the status quo, which can be kind of scary. With this thought in mind, it’s time to find your courage and throw yourself out there. Abandon what’s safe for the sake of exploring new territory. Embrace change with boldness! The best things you’ll ever do are the things that scare you a little.

Need a tip to get started? What’s something you’ve always wanted to do but lacked the courage to try? Today’s the day to give it a go. Ask out the cute guy you’ve been mooning over. Get the haircut. Go to a party.

Express Yourself

Creative sorts are terrible at following the crowd. If everyone is wearing the same thing or doing the same things, wouldn’t life be boring? This is the time to express yourself. Love wearing pink? Embrace your inner pink self and grab the pinkest thing you own. You’re a hat person, but no one else ever seems to wear them? Tough, grab your best fedora, and enjoy the quirkiness of it. It’s time to be the real you and quit blending with those around you.

Need a tip to get started? What do you truly love in your wardrobe, but never wear near as much as you like? Today make this particular article of clothing at least a part of your wardrobe.

Lose Track of Time

Have you ever gotten so far into the zone on a project that you find great blocks of time passed right by you without you even noticing? This is the flow state, and when you hit it, magic happens. Creative people know how to tap into this magical world where only they and their project exist. This is where you need to learn how to let go and embrace whatever pulls you in this deeply. Here is where you’ll discover your own magic.

Need a tip to get started? Pick a time when you have a few hours to get lost in something. Ask yourself when you last hit the ‘zone.’ What were you doing at the time? Remember how it felt. Now find something deeply interesting that you can fully immerse yourself in. It doesn’t matter what you choose, the point is to recreate the experience. Now sink into the project and allow yourself to lose track of time.

Adopting the traits of creative people is incredibly rewarding. Thankfully, it’s very easy to make them part of your daily life. Once you do, look out! You’ll find your creative juices really do start flowing. You’ll begin to have more ideas and will see connections faster. You’ll accomplish more, in better and faster ways.

In the end, you’ll find you’ve become an entirely different person. You’ll have become one of those ‘creative types,’ and people will be starting to look to you as someone with the best answers to life’s problems. When this happens, you will have arrived, you creative person you!