“Success is… knowing your purpose in life, growing to reach your maximum potential, and sowing seeds that benefit others.” John C. Maxwell

Have you ever wondered what the mindset is of successful, productive and profitable creative people?

When I use the word Creative, I mean anyone who enjoys creating products, art, music, digital products, books, services, blogposts, speaking, coaching, teaching, or basically creating anything that brings value to others.

That’s a question I’ve been pondering and researching for the past few months or so. Really I’ve asked this question since I’ve had more creative ideas as I’ve started this blog and as I’ve been doing more and more writing. 

The question that keeps popping up in my mind is how do creatives become productive?

4 Traits of Successful Creatives

Here’s four characteristics that I’ve noticed as I’ve studied and been mentored by Successful Creatives.

1. Ability to See 

To see creative possibilities you need to look at things you love to do with a new set of eyes.[Tweet this]

Be aware of the new ideas that constantly come up in your mind. Then find a way to capture those ideas and jot them down. I quickly write down my ideas in a notebook or type it in a document.

This awareness is the art of listening. To hear where people are struggling, their hopes and dreams, where they need help and how you can help them accomplish the desires of their heart. 

It all starts with the ability to see.

2. Faith to Believe in You

The faith to believe in yourself and what you have to offer the world is so important.

 You have to believe that your gift is super valuable to someone. You need to believe there are people who need advice and value that comes from your own life experiences and personality.

This takes hard work to figure it out. It’s something that builds up over time.

Honestly, I’ve doubted myself way to much and because of that I’ve procrastinated and put things off. I’ve chosen to grab hold of gifts I’ve been given and put them out there, even though I’m not sure of the end result.

Successful creatives have an attitude of confidence, faith and belief. Believe that your experiences, skills, background and personality bring value to someone.

When you have moments of doubt in yourself and what you have to offer(and most likely you will), keep taking action on what you do best. Keep doing what you love. Believe that over time you’ll figure it out.

3. Courage to Take Action

For many people who are creative, the biggest struggle is between their ears. So we hesitate.

The truth is successful creative people, take action in spite of their doubts. They have the courage to do. [Tweet this]

Instead of overanalyzing, they take the steps they need to take. They do the work and put themselves out there without knowing the outcome of their efforts. 

The truth is you need to make the decision to go for it.

Decide to go ahead and write that book, create that course or whatever your idea is. Because the pain of not doing it is greater than the hard work of getting it done. Each step builds on the other.

Creatives need to develop the habit of constantly taking action. Not everything will be an amazing success, but you will learn something from each step.

The courage to take action is something I’m learning everyday.

4. Hope to Hang in There

Creative people have perseverance. They just keep trying out their new ideas. Some people say they are lucky. But the truth is there’s a lot of hard work that has been done in the background and over time that we often miss.

I’ve needed to ask myself what areas I need to grow in as a creative person. Honestly, I feel like in each of these four traits I need to keep growing.

How about you?

Do you have a vision of blogging, writing books, creating online courses or other creative projects that you could create around your passion? Ask yourself if you have the faith to believe in yourself enough to try.

Then take action daily and and steps to make those dreams become a real part of your life. You’ll be happy you did. 

Maybe you have more than one creative project you like to do. I like writing books, blogging and creating online classes(the last one is quite new, but I’m discovering it’s quite fun).

If there are many different creative ideas you love to explore and learn, you might be a multipotentialite.

Give yourself the freedom to see the possibilities, to believe in yourself enough to take action and then choose to hang in there. Believe that you were given the gifts you have to help inspire and benefit someone else. And go for it.

Which of these 4 qualities of productive creatives, do you feel like you are doing well at and which traits do you feel need some tweaking? I’d love to hear your thoughts in the comments below.