Five Ways To Be More Creative

Creativity is an unpredictable thing. It can be very fickle, leaving for days, weeks, and months at a time if you don’t practice (and sometimes still leaving even when you do practice). It can strike at the most random times, leaving us feeling a sudden rush of inspiration that can disappear again as quickly as it appeared in the first place. The following list mentions ways to practice and increase your creativity, hopefully making it a little less fickle. This, by no means, is a list of the best ways to be creative, but it’s a list of a few of my favorite ideas. Perhaps I will inspire you with a new idea or two!

1. Notice Details

Allow your mind to wonder and think freely of the world around you. Pay attention to the people walking by. What are they wearing? What are their expressions like? Notice the architecture of the building you are walking by. What is the texture of the wall? Are there windows? How many? Is there construction being done? What are the construction workers doing? Do they look happy? Allow yourself to notice and think about these “trivial” details of life. Do this and you will find inspiration in the unlikeliest of places.

2. Read

Read a book, read a magazine, read the news, read a page of the dictionary (read my blog! haha). It doesn’t matter what it is, just read! Reading every day is not only good for the mind, but it is good for the creative soul. Learning new and interesting words through reading is a great way to expand your vocabulary, and reading other people’s work can inspire you to think about something old in a new way or discover something new altogether. Reading can help you see and experience the world through another person’s eyes, with new information and world viewpoints to discover. Now that can get pretty creative.

3. Try New Things

Listen to new music, watch new movies, go to new places (even in the city you’ve lived in for years), try to join new groups or classes, try to work in a new place, take a walk if you don’t normally do, just do something different. Mixing up your routine, and seeing the world from a slightly different perspective in the process, can do amazing things for the creative mind. Trying new things can not only open doors and windows of opportunity to making new connections, but it will allow you to discover your world in a new way. Just sitting in your same old routine everyday can get boring. Trying new things leads to new discoveries. New discoveries lead to new creations.

4. Do Your Research

Have a topic in mind but don’t know where to begin? Got a case of writer’s block? Research your topic. Keep researching until you are inspired and then research some more. Know your topic and you will have a much easier time writing (or painting, etc.) about it. Once you have more knowledge you will be more confident in what you are doing. With more knowledge and more confidence it will be easier to be more naturally creative without forcing it.

5. Allow Mistakes

Some of the greatest mistakes in history have led to some of the most amazing things. Imagine if we lived in a world without penicillin, super glue, chocolate chip cookies, champagne, or LSD. Ok, that last one might just be for me but, seriously, the drug inspired some of the world’s most creative people; John Lennon, Steve Jobs, Jack Nicholson, Ken Keasey, & Kary Mullis to name a few. I don’t want to imagine living in a world in which all these amazing people and all these amazing inventions & discoveries made by mistake don’t exist (especially chocolate chip cookies). Famous inventors and scientists have been making mistakes for centuries, but so many of their mistakes turned out not to be mistakes at all. Why should making mistakes be considered so bad. Making mistakes means you are trying. Trying means you are creating. Keep creating and your mistakes can turn into something extraordinary. Never allow the fear of making a mistake stop your creative mind from working in the first place. Let go of this fear, and let what you might consider a flawed idea develop into something more.

Some of my other favorite ideas to stay creative include: stretching and exercise (something I desperately need to do more of), taking risks, meditating, and finishing a project (or poem) already started.

Now you can inspire me too! Leave a comment suggesting your favorite ways to be more creative. Maybe I’ve never seen your creative ideas before! You never know until you leave a comment 