Build Your Business by Nurturing Your Creative Side

As the caretaker of your business, it's up to you to feed it new ideas and fresh insights. But sometimes it feels like your well has run dry, and finding an inspiring idea is more difficult than squeezing water from a rock. Which is why it's imperative to your mental health and the success of your business to cultivate, nurture, and foster your creative side before you arrive at that exasperated state. In order to continue to build your business, you must make your personal curiosity, growth, and play a priority, and support your creativity in ways that have NOTHING to do with the business you run. Here are some of my favorite inspiration igniters. 1. Learn something new. Be a complete beginner. Try something you've never experienced before. Being a newbie requires your brain to contort and connect differently. The surest path to stale is to do the same thing again and again without introducing new ways of thinking. Let this adventure have nothing (seemingly) to do with your business, and then watch the dots connect down the line, and marvel as fresh ideas bloom. 2. Make something. There is nothing like crafting with your hands to free your mind from the restricting bonds of your incessant think tank. Busy your hands and let the creativity flow. Pinterest is FULL of DIY projects. Peruse and pick one – the simpler and more whimsical, the better. Spend a couple hours playing and assembling your creation. The change in both your mental and physical presence will produce a host of uncharted ideas for your business. 3. Photograph Nature I'm not suggesting you attempt to be the next Ansel Adams. Leave the perfectionist at home. You can walk around snapping pictures with your phone's camera for all it matters. Why this? The reason is twofold. First, it gets you outside, which is a birthplace of wonder. Second, when you take photographs you look at the world differently. Nature is full of beautiful patterns, contrasting colors, and amazing intricacies. This exercise opens your eyes to the perfect panorama of nature in a way you don't usually view it. Get close. Bury your nose in a leaf. Take a photo of the mossy pattern on a tree trunk. Snap a picture of the pockmarked surface of a pebble. Adopt a new vantage point. When we walk the same route through our minds, we rut ourselves into patterns that are difficult to break, and our brains become lazy. There is only so much inspiration you can glean from one method done the same way every day. You've got to exercise your brain in ways it's unaccustomed to in order for your brilliance to continue to develop and grow. If you're feeling like you couldn't squeeze a new idea from your soul if your life depended on it, then you haven't been tending to your creativity consistently enough, and it's time for an emergency play date with yourself. You'll be amazed at what some simple time to reorder your mind and nurture your whimsy will do for your business. Bask in your creativity. Let it bloom. Do it for the simple joy, not the result. I promise you, you'll surprise yourself. And your business will reap the benefits.