How to be more creative - Little Fish Big Impact

What is a creative frame of mind?

So how do you go about getting more creative? Let me give you some ideas.

Find the right frame of mind

Explore what states you associate with feeling creative. Discover what triggers and maintains your creativity.

Ask yourself:

What is your best time of day?
The best environment?
Do you need to be alone or with others or alone amid others?
Do you need sounds or silence or background music?

Build a profile of your creativity state. Instead of waiting for some divine intervention or for it to just happen on its own make time and space for using this state regularly.

Cultivate dreaming

Pay attention to your experience of life and attention to your existing creativity rather than dismissing daydreams, intuitive feelings and dreams.

Do not allow yourself to waste what you may already discover by ignoring it. Ask yourself “What if?” and “What else?” and “How else?”

What if you were born a different race or gender?

What if you were born in a different part of the world?

What if non-human animals could talk?

Always go beyond your first thought in order to find more and more fresh ideas.

Creativity is a habit, and the best creativity is the result of good work habits.
Twyla Tharp 1

Do something different

If you hit a problem, pretend your usual solution is not available. For example, if your laptop crashes today, how else might you do your work?

See how different results you can get by using the same three ingredients to cook as many meals as possible. Do not limit yourself.

Then challenge yourself with cooking everything in one pot.

If cooking is not your thing, you can have some great fun by taking an every day object and

imagine or think about how many other uses it can have

You can even think about how to combine them with other objects. These will develop and enhance your creativity.

Think of different ways to do the familiar with everything around you.

Change the order in which you do things, use different things, eg, use your less favoured hand to write, to draw.

As soon as you break routine, you move from a state where you are on auto-pilot to one where you are alive and alert. You exercise unfamiliar brain connections and build new links in your brain too. A glorious feeling!

Look out for what makes a difference. When you encounter something that strikes you as different, ask yourself what it is about it that is so different or unusual. As yourself “Where does the key difference lie?”

Experiment with your creative skills like writing in a journal or blog just for fun. Or create a test or quiz from scratch on a subject you find interested.

Brainstorm project ideas at work or at home, for example, garden design, home renovations. Even consider processes and procedures, which can improve any product or service you use.

There are endless ways to use your creativity everyday.

References:

1.Twyla Tharp (1941-)American dancer, choreographer, and author