Ever felt yourself on the brink of an amazing idea, but suddenly, your creativity seemed to grind to a halt? If you’ve experienced this annoyance before, you’re probably keen to learn how to get the creative juices flowing again.
In this day and age, creativity is as important as it’s ever been. Even in the business world, the greatest success is achieved through innovation, for which we must have creativity!
If you’ve ever felt let down by your current level of creativity, it’s time to work on improving it. You may be surprised to realize that intelligence only plays a modest role in creative genius.
It’s actually far more complex than we first imagined. In fact, creativity is complexity in itself. There are no quick or easy fixes, however, you can gradually boost your creativity with these 6 simple mind shifts.
1. Believe Creativity Can Be Grown
While this may seem obvious, it’s essential for you to harness all your willpower from the start. The mere act of belief is one of the most powerful motivators.
You must throw away the concept that creativity is an inborn gift. It’s true we naturally develop a certain level of creativity, but then it’s up to you to encourage and allow its growth.
Align your belief now and you will commit yourself to becoming more creative.
2. Choose Lateral Over Vertical Learning
Broadly speaking, there are two different ways we acquire knowledge. Vertical learning is specialization in a particular knowledge field, whereas lateral learning gives us a grasp on a variety of different knowledge fields.
Naturally, you’ll find yourself gravitating towards one or the other. If you’re typically a logical thinker, you’ll often lean towards vertical. However, making an effort to focus on lateral learning will fuel your creativity greatly. Having a wide variety of knowledge in different fields will give your creative side more resources to flow through.
3. Train Your Creativity as You Would a Muscle
Steve Jobs was without a doubt a creative inspiration to all of us. During his time, he shared a wealth of creative wisdom, including this quote:
“You can’t connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future.” – Steve Jobs
However, it’s worth knowing that Jobs already had some mighty creative muscles in place. Without them, it’s difficult for us to achieve the same.
Fortunately, we can train the creative functions of the brain much like we train our muscles in the gym. By providing regular stimulation and pushing ourselves, growth can be triggered.
Practice stretching your creativity using methods such as brainstorming or writing as many ideas as you can on paper. As you become more creative, you’ll notice ideas flowing more easily.
4. Dedicate Time to Creativity
If you’re serious about becoming more creative, you’ll need to dedicate time to it. Save at least one free hour per day solely for your own creativity. Allow your mind to wander without daily activities and duties interfering.
Don’t see this as unproductive time, see it as essential playtime for your creative side. When you grant your mind this freedom, you’ll be amazed at what you can come up with!
5. Keep a Thought Journal
Have you ever experienced a spark of creative genius, only to have it fade away before you can act upon it? This is actually quite common, even for the greatest creative thinkers of our time.
Creativity is introspective and sensitive to our feelings. Ideas can come and go as fleetingly as our emotions. Inspiration can strike at any moment and be gone in the next.
Creative geniuses often keep thought journals for jotting down these thoughts as they go about their day. Start capturing your fleeting thoughts on paper, then you can revisit them later for deeper reflection.
6. Consciously Use Both Sides of Your Brain
Creativity is not black and white. It’s not a simple case of left-brain for logical and right-brain for creative thinking. True creativity comes from a harmonious balance of both.
Becoming more self-understanding will help bolster your creativity. Start by identifying your usual thinking patterns and purposefully balancing yourself out. For instance, if logical thinking is too dominating, you should simulate the creative side with activities such as drawing or painting.
Ultimately, you should be able to easily transition between both creative and logical thinking. Once you have mastered this, you will be well on your way to becoming a true creative genius!
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