Some people possess a natural inclination towards the creative. These individuals, who are the envy of many, simply think differently. When asked to explain how they dreamed up ideas or concepts, they often find themselves at a loss.
Their tight-lipped response isn’t a byproduct of the fact that they don’t want to share; instead, it’s simply because their creative process is so natural that they simply can’t explain it. The differences between these born creatives and the rest of the world extends far beyond their abilities to produce masterworks. There are actually many things that these gifted individuals simply do differently from the rest of us.
1. Pay Attention
Creative people don’t have to be told to stop and smell the roses – they already do. These individuals are truly attentive to the world around them. They look and listen and feel everything. Unlike typical people who have cursory interactions with their environments, these wondrous inventors truly experience and appreciate everything.
2. Daydream
Creative people are willing to pause, relax and let their minds wander. Despite the fact that some people may say that daydreaming is simply a waste of time, the most creative know that this is far from true. It is in a daydream state that these stellar inventors dream and imagine and give birth to new ideas and concepts.
3. Set Their Own Schedule
Clocking in and doing all of their work from nine to five doesn’t work for most creatives. These people need to work when the mood strikes – and on whatever schedules fit their natural clocks. The ideal working hours vary from individual to individual with some opting to rise with the sun and create with a steaming cup of coffee in hand while others opt to stay up into the wee hours and sip away on a glass of wine.
4. Forget About Time
Not only do the most creative people do their best work on their own schedule, but when they are doing this work, they lose time entirely. These people don’t clock watch and count the hours and minutes that they’ve been working. Instead, they let creativity wash over them completely and lose track of the time all together – so forgive them if they’re late to dinner.
5. Relish Alone Time
Although creative people can become lonely just like everyone else, they don’t avoid being alone as some do. Creative people use their alone time to ponder and reconnect with their inner selves, thinking through thoughts and ideas. They take the quiet that comes with being alone and transform it into something spectacular.
6. Thrive In Difficult Situations
Creative people feel the physical and emotional strains associated with facing some of life’s most difficult experiences just like everyone else. It’s how they respond to these stressful situations that sets them apart.
For many creative people, the best ideas and concepts are forged in the fires of conflict. These individuals possess the amazing ability to rise, Phoenix-like, from the flames and come out the other side of strife even better in touch with themselves and the world than they were before.
7. Reject Comfort
Many creative people are highly aware that their best work comes out of periods of discomfort. Knowing this, those that truly live and breathe creativity shun excessive comfort. They’re often more comfortable living in slightly uncomfortable situations as they know that these are the situations in which they are being tested enough to truly build and create.
8. Explore
Most creative individuals seek out new experiences. These individuals yearn for the discovery of new places and people. They want to understand the world and recognize that doing so is impossible without fully exploring the wonderful planet on which they live.
9. Ask Questions
Creative people aren’t afraid to pose questions. They’re generally fearless question-posers, willing to present queries even if they know that those questions cannot be answered. They know that asking questions is the only way to encourage others to participate in higher level thinking.
10. Take Risks
Creative people take risks – all the time. Being creative is, in itself, a giant risk. Any time a creative individual puts forth a product, they are taking a risk. People could hate their work just as easily as they could love it. They have no way of knowing until they put it out there, fearless, allowing people to judge it.
11. Make Connections
To the typical individual, the world can look like a series of disconnected people, places and things. To the most creative, the world is full of connections – small and large. Creative people produce complex webs in their heads, relating items that seem disconnected, and use these connections to better explore and explain, making complex topics tangible and manageable.
12. Get Bored
Even though their minds are constantly moving, creative people are prone to getting bored. They aren’t happy unless they are thinking and creating and when in situations where doing these things isn’t possible, they feel the effects. They seek to escape these periods of boredom as quickly as possible as they know that they could be doing amazing things with their time and energy.
13. Take Care Of Themselves
Creative people value themselves. Aware of their skills, they want to do anything they can to ensure that these skills stay as well-honed as possible. This often means taking care of themselves physically, in the form of eating well and exercising, and mentally in the form of constantly learning and building their brains.
Although they may neglect some basic self-care tasks when they’re most inspired, when they fall out of the fit of inspiration, they tend to these basics faithfully.
14. Think Before They Speak
Letting words simply flow out of their mouths unchecked isn’t common among the creative. These people tend to contemplate their speech long before they make any utterances. Their purpose in doing this is two-fold.
Firstly, they are keenly aware of their unique ability to express things eloquently and want to do so whenever possible. Secondly, they’re highly tuned in to people’s emotions and are desperate to avoid the unintentional upset that could come from saying the wrong thing to the wrong person, using the wrong words.
15. Seek Perfection
When creating, creative people want their products to be perfect. They are often highly critical of their works and eager to perfect them. Often this leads them to reject perfectly reasonable work 
and return to the drawing board, determined to create something more perfect – more reflective of their true abilities. Much to the chagrin of many creatives, perfection is so very hard to attain.
16. Learn Constantly
Creative people don’t see the world as fully knowable. Despite the fact that they know they can’t understand everything, they want to understand as much as possible. They often dedicate time to taking classes or engaging in self-study to grow their knowledge base and chip away at the massive body of knowledge they haven’t yet acquired – and never fully will.
