5 Ways To Spark Your Creativity
I believe that inside every single person is an inventive genius just dying to be tapped into. Some people seem to be blessed with an ability to be endlessly creative, while others just can’t seem to be inspired by anything at all, but it’s really not an issue of natural talent. It’s very possible to initiate your own creative abilities, and below are 5 great ways to get you started.
- 1) Start writing down your dreams.
Get a small notebook and keep it on the nightstand next to your bed or somewhere else easily accessible during the night. If you care to spend for a tape recorder, even better. Every time you have a dream, when you wake up, even though you’ll probably really want to go right back to sleep, write down or dictate the events of your dream. Even if you don’t remember any dreams when you wake for the day, re-reading them can often bring back the memory.
This tactic has almost endless creative possibilities because they’re you’re dreams - anything can happen! Whenever you get an idea, run with it and see where it takes you. If you don’t get anywhere, don’t fret. Just go back to bed, and let your subconscious mind do all the work for you. The best part about doing this is that the more often you write down your dreams, the better you’ll get at recalling them. The better you get at dream recall, the more probable it will be that you can have a lucid dream, which makes for even more creative potential.
- 2) Get a really cool pen.
I don’t know about the rest of you, but I’ve got one pen in my collection that I love above all the others. I’m not sure exactly why; maybe the way it fits in my hand, the way the ink flows out of it without adding any pressure, it’s deep, rich hue… The point here is that this pen is the only pen I own that makes me want to write, even if I have nothing to write about. I just really like using it, and doodling around on my page with it has actually spawned some really neat ideas.
- 3) Freewrite/mindmap/doodle.
This ties in really well with getting a nice pen. Once you find a suitable writing utensil, grab a sheet of paper, start writing, and don’t stop for 5 minutes. 10 minutes. 30 minutes.
And I really mean don’t stop! If you don’t know what to write, write the words “I don’t know what to write” over and over until something pops into your head, but whatever you do, keep that pen moving. Challenge yourself to do this - this is tough, but can really provoke genius.
- 4) Brainstorm with a friend.
This one is a little tricky, because it’s not always productive, since it’s a lot easier to get sidetracked while working with others, but sometimes the give-and-take creates an idea greater than anything one person could have cooked up themselves.
I’ve read several studies that insist that this technique simply doesn’t work, but I personally disagree. This isn’t a technique to be used all the time, but when you get stumped, it’s a real eye opener to see someone else working towards the same goal from a different angle. Even in the “worst case scenario” where working with a partner causes too much distraction to be useful, at least you had a good time socializing with a friend.
- 5) Work backwards.
Reverse engineer.
Reword things.
Work from the top down instead of from ground up.
Sometimes it’s quite tricky to see the right answer from where you are, but usually it’s easy to see at least a few wrong answers. Let yourself know what those wrong answers are.
For example, going along with this post, say you’re trying to kindle your creative flame, but have hit a roadblock. If asking yourself how to be imaginative gets you nowhere, ask how not to be imaginative. From there, responses seem a lot simpler - don’t focus, procrastinate, and watch a lot of T.V. Those are some great ways to not be inventive. Now, take those ideas and reverse them. You’ll find that it’s a simple way to find the answer that’s been right in front of your nose.
