How To Flex Your Creative Muscles To Build A Business
The lack of a creative outlet in a typical gig is an unfortunate consequence of today’s business environment. The void strips the value of creative practices and downplays its significance in professional success.
To make matters worse, the day job contributes to our lack of mental bandwidth, and it stifles our own innovation. After we grind through Monday to Friday, we dedicate our evenings and weekends to rudimentary business practices — paperwork, email, web maintenance, etc. –, and we put creativity on the back-burner.
The problem: Creativity in business processes is critical to business success. Process alone will not put us on top. Competition in the entrepreneur landscape necessitates innovation to stand out. Creativity is the catalyst. We often hear, “But what if I’m not creative?”
Everyone is creative.
We are intuitively creative. When one of us critiques a movie, TV show, music, or even food, it’s a small snapshot into a creative mind. We need to consistently call out, flex and strengthen this creative muscle in order to differentiate ourselves from the competition and attain entrepreneurial success.
Daniel Pink talks about this concept in his New York Times Bestseller, A Whole New Mind: Why Right-Brainers Will Rule the World. He argues the success of global businesses in our generation will come from creatives, and he considers creativity the key of differentiation in a competitive marketplace.
Don’t get left behind.
It doesn’t take an inordinate amount of time to build a creative muscle. Everyday there are opportunities for us to get the creative juices flowing.
Here are three ways to open your creative floodgates.
- Food & Drink
- Try a new recipe, buy craft beer or coffee: What’s more basic than food and drink? Every new recipe and taste forces us to open our mind to other preferences, and when we enjoy this activity with others, we build relationships and set the stage for conversation and brainstorming.
- Art & Movies
- Go to a BYOB painting or ceramic class: Learn colors, styles, and what looks good and doesn’t. Apply what you learn to newsletters, your website, products or services.
- Watch critically acclaimed films: What makes them attractive, funny, or dramatic? Movies can be a case study and market research into what our culture wants, needs and appreciates. Start asking, “What need does it fill?” then reflect on your own business.
- Exercise & Journaling
- Get the blood flowing: Get creative about how, when and where you workout. Innovate to do workouts at your desk, in your car, at home. It opens the blood vessels, flows more oxygen to the brain, increases productivity and gives us the needed energy to think creatively.
- Write a five minute journal entry: Write your observations, thoughts, and aspirations about your business. Reflect on what you write and think about and what you can change and apply it to your audience. What can you do better to reach them? Then, pivot your marketing to what you find. Test and repeat.
Commit to creativity
The creative muscle is no different than any other exercise. The more we are intentional about finding time to build it, the greater the opportunity we will give ourselves to make it happen. Steven Pressfield’s book, The War of Art: Break Through the Blocks and Win Your Inner Creative Battles, is a great resource to start from the ground up. He talks about the greatest barriers behind creativity for artists and entrepreneurs alike, and he outlines how to break through them.
“One step forward is always better than no step at all. We start small, work our way up, and watch the creative magic happen.”
How do you flex the creative muscle? Share your tips in the comments below!
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