AI Mindset for Creative Innovation
Setting a General Direction
Asking a creative mind to elucidate their thought process is akin to requesting one to map unexplored territory. How does one navigate without a map?
It is better to orient toward a nebulous vision that is directionally correct rather than a fixed destination. This vision serves as a north star that can iterate and change as the journey unfolds and new insights provide clarity.
As we march through life and take on roles and tasks, expectations and judgment cast an ever-growing shadow across the once-sunny landscapes of our childhood imaginings.
Where does the creative mind hide when bombarded by the pedantic moments of daily life?
The creative spirit can feel crushed by the weight of disempowering external events from national to global arenas. The sheer magnitude of life can be an overwhelming force on the emergent properties of the creative spirit, crushing the spark we seek to cultivate.
Discomfort is Momentum Calling
Innovators show the path to new; that is what we do, no matter how the odds are stacked.
The inner world is trying to live in alignment with the physical world. Finding no space to fit her natural shape, she conforms to a poorly fitting costume, struggling to move, let alone feel comfortable in her skin. This is incongruence.
This feeling is far from unique; many of us live lives of quiet desperation, confined by invisible barriers we unknowingly constructed in our minds.
Societal conditioning, circumstance, prejudice, and fear are the poisons that keep us locked in the disempowering state of contorting our lives to fit a mold shaped by external forces.
How do we find our footing, force, and power to remain dynamic, passionate, and prolific and create internal and external alignment, i.e., congruence?
It’s About The Question
Every good therapist uses questions like a surgeon wields the business edge of their scalpel.
The entry point to inner wisdom and action begins with targeted self-inquiry. Explore the ten prompts listed below. These questions are designed to encourage reflection and action on creativity, building on the themes of fortitude, exploration, and authentic expression.
Choose one of the ten prompts that speak most to where you are in your creative process. Give yourself a focused block of time—fifteen minutes or a full day—to investigate the questions it raises.
Record every idea, experiment, and setback in a journal or project log. If you are a perfectionist, journal like you are making a grocery list; do not allow corrections or edits.
The intention is to create space and awareness for your inner world to manifest by exporting your ideas and thoughts onto paper.
The purpose is not to create a finished work or artifact.
Bonus points: share what you learn with a trusted partner or friend.
Identify Your Constraints
What limitations or boundaries (time, materials, or resources) currently shape your creative work? How might those constraints spark fresh ideas or solutions? Sketch out the plan for a new series based on these constraints. Where do you run into blocks, and where do you find new creative pathways?
Balance Vision with Reality
Think of a recent project where your ambition collided with feasibility. How can you refine your big ideas without losing their essence and without burnout?
Experiment Openly
Recall a failed experiment or project that taught you an unexpected lesson. What did that experience change about your approach to trying new things? What did failure teach you about yourself and how you think about yourself when you hit a low and high note in your career? Are you always compassionate with yourself even when you fail?
Invite Collaboration
Picture one person in your network whose skill set complements yours. How might working together enrich your next creative venture? Write an email inviting that person to meet for a virtual coffee to discuss creativity. Send the email.
Express Your Authentic Self
Describe a personal quirk or unique interest that shines through in your creative projects. How can you highlight it even more? Can you start a new series based on this idea alone?
Build Resilience
Reflect on a time when uncertainty challenged your momentum. Which coping strategy or mindset shift helped you push through? Write your answer as though you are writing to your younger self as a mentor, writing words of encouragement to a mentee.
Adopt an AI or Tech Tool
Which emerging technology intrigues you right now? How might it expand your creative possibilities rather than replace your personal vision? Can you think of a question to prompt an AI tool related to your work right now? Try prompting at least one AI tool using your question. Is the result useful? Try adjusting your question by adding more detail and context; how is the result different?
Iterate with Purpose
Think of a piece you’re not fully satisfied with. What would you change if you had only one hour to complete the work? Why is this your choice? What feels different about the piece? How will you talk about this decision to a collector or gallery?
Incorporate Diverse Perspectives
When did you last seek input from a completely different field or discipline?
If it has been a while, what places can you look to cultivate cross-disciplinary inspiration?
Envision Future Creations
Close your eyes and imagine your next big project without constraints.
Can you create a plan of execution by prompting an AI tool to create a step-by-step project plan focused on the outcome you have in mind?
How does it feel to extend your process with AI?
Did using AI get you started faster or answer questions you did not know you had?
Improve Your Tech Game
We cannot allow the instinct to become ostriches to win the war against inertia. Understand technology's strengths and weaknesses, and it will be your friend. Fear and lack of knowledge keep us on the sidelines when we are always better off armed with information relevant to our mission.
If your mission is to create and to make a living from the creations you bring to the world, AI is a powerful ally when leveraged as a tool rather than a solution.
Whether you are on a first-name basis with ChatGPT or have never asked AI to transcribe so much as an email, crafting prompts with enhanced parameters will drastically improve your AI generations and create more consistent outputs.
We have created a nifty tool to help you seed your prompts with relevant parameters. Our readers can access the Prompt Wizard via the link in the panel below. Simply input your email and begin prompting with better inputs for improved and more predictable outputs.
The Prompt Wizard tool allows you to explore our custom GPT for even more refined outputs. We hope you enjoy experimenting with AI and guided prompting.
Think of your exploration with AI like a scientist. Record your hypothesis and the steps you take to get to your result (your experiment or prompts, in this case), and iterate on your prompts and inputs to explore how varying parameters change the output. Start with one AI platform, e.g., ChatGPT, and then try comparing the results from different platforms, Claude, Mistral, etc., using the same "experiment."
You will find that each model, platform, and tool in the AI world provides nuanced benefits or limitations from one tool to the next. Systematic approaches work well when exploring where technology belongs in your creative or business process.
Free Prompt Wizard - Better Results with AI
Create clearer, more targeted prompts for your art or brand with our free AI Prompt Helper and ChatGPT. Access the helper via the link below, input your email, and start generating better results with AI today.
See Past Your Past
Josef Adler, the most excellent advisor to the seekers of the present moment, taught us to act with the knowledge of now and the spirit of community and connection. The ideal language is never hierarchical or diminishing but constructive, generative, and supportive of growth.
You choose the words you speak, write, and indeed think.
Cognitive biases and conformity pressure often skew our perception, leading us to underestimate our capabilities and succumb to societal norms that don't serve our best interests.
These distortions create an illusion of impossibility, causing you to believe that your dreams are out of reach and that you must settle for a life that feels unfulfilling.
Your perception of self will be realized fully when you must rely solely on your own mind to guide you. This is the non-romantic side of startup life, creative solo-preneurism, the hustle, the "awkward path."
Stagnation is death; the end is the beginning of the next round — get used to this.
Iteration is the name of the game.
You know the bad guys in platform games like Mario, and how, with each level, you must master the new skills required to beat the next level? Life is like this, too.
Iteration is how we build upon what we already know; iteration is the constructive path out of failure to learn from and develop from mistakes. This process builds strength in you and what you build.
I highly recommend keeping a journal with you on this journey (and always). Reflecting on your notes over time is a beautiful gift to the self and validation that you are on your path.
Journaling should not be daunting; if you get stuck in perfectionism, buy cheap journals and think of journaling as internal list-making.
Remove the barriers, learn tools that help, write how you feel— iterate.
Mindfulness apps such as Headspace (this affiliate link supports my work) and our app for creative solo practice, AICharmLab are tools that help. We are building the app to capture the amazing process uplifts that AI is bringing to our collective and individual creative flow(s).
Click the button below to learn more about the app and join the waitlist.
Until next week — Your faithful writer, Sonia a.k.a. SuperSonic
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