How to Boost your Creativity- 10 Clever Suggestions to Boost your Creativity

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Ten Clever Suggestions to Help You Boost Your Creativity

The ability to be creative is a muscle, and just like any other muscle, it needs to be exercised in order to become stronger over time. However, going to the gym once a week won’t cut it when it comes to developing your creative side. 

There are a number of indicators that will reveal that you require an injection of creative energy. It doesn’t matter if you’re a writer, a painter, or a composer; if you find yourself staring at a blank page or a canvas, it means that you’re experiencing a creative block.

 However, this is not the only cause of writer’s block; it is also possible for you to be blocked even if you write every day but discover that your story isn’t really going anywhere, or if, after outlining a plot prior to writing, you find that your characters have a tendency to take control of your story in a way that does not assist you in moving the plot forwards. 

If you ever have the sense that your creative juices have run dry, it’s a sign that you need to take a break, regroup, and give one of the following ways to stimulate your imagination a shot.

1. Escape from your comfort zone & the Daily Routines

Diversify your writing/ artwork by trying out new writing/art styles, genres, and points of view. 

For Instance, if you are a Blogger like me, Try writing in the third person if you often write from the first person point of view. 

Alternatively, take a random secondary character from one of your own works and write something from their point of view. When you’re experiencing writer’s block, the act of writing may feel like a chore, so it’s important to keep in mind that you’re writing because it brings you joy. 

This will help you remember why you wanted to be a writer in the first place.

Find music that inspires you, create interesting lighting by sticking distorted paper in front of the lamps, decorate a wall with old product packages, hang king-size posters of your favorite designers, rip pages out of a color catalog, and pin them up,….

Alternatively, you might cover the walls in paper and then let your creativity run wild with paints and brushes.

2.Daily care and Nurturing your Creative Thoughts

When it comes to enhancing your level of creativity, one of the most important things to keep in mind is to engage in at least one creative exercise or activity every day. 

This can be anything from writing a poem to making a collage. No, your routine of writing every day does not count towards this requirement, unless you are content with your creative abilities hitting a stalemate. 

The purpose of the exercises is to expand your creative muscles by forcing you to be creative on a daily basis, with the hopes that eventually, engaging in these activities will become as natural as breathing. 

Because of this, the activities that were described before will work incredibly well to help you overcome writer’s block, and the reason for this is that they are all things that you will normally do for fun. 

They will put you in a good mood and give you a healthy dose of positive energy. When it comes to enjoying the process of writing, feeling good is essential since it will improve the quality of your writing and will ensure that you write more than you have in the past. 

Feeling good will also boost the amount of writing that you do.

3. Walking can help you Boost your Creativity

The researchers at Stanford found that going for a walk increased creative ideas. They found that people’s creative output was significantly higher when they were walking as opposed to sitting during the experiment. 

Walking has been shown to boost a person’s creative output by an average of 60% when compared to other activities( Source)

A recent study conducted by experts at Stanford offers an explanation for this phenomenon.

According to the findings of a study that was co-authored by Marily Oppezzo, who received her doctorate in educational psychology from Stanford, and Daniel Schwartz, who is a professor at the Stanford Graduate School of Education, creative thinking improves while a person is walking and in the immediate aftermath of the activity.

Take a quick stroll, no more than twenty to thirty minutes, and just let your thoughts wander as you go. 

Take in your environment and see if you can come up with a tale to fit it, or just sit there and listen to the sounds, feel the breeze on your face, or the heat of the sun on your skin. 

Make use of your senses to ground yourself in the present and get your mind off of things. You need to do ta.

My ideology for fostering a creative mentality, broken down into FIVE points
The following is my own personal manifesto for creativity, which consists of five points and includes some thoughts that I’ve found to be helpful during this time:

Create some room for your creative side. Taking the first step towards creating the appropriate conditions is making the decision to make room for it. When our schedule is packed with back-to-back calls and responsibilities, it will be difficult for us to come up with those major ideas. 

Therefore, set time limits in order to leave room for free-flowing ideas and speech. By leaving space in your agenda, you might implicitly grant yourself permission to be creative.

Find out what inspires your most creative thoughts. Due to the fact that we are all unique individuals, epiphanies can occur for a variety of reasons. 

A run. Hearing music at a high volume. Silence. A stroll with the dog in tow. Making dinner. Aaron Sorkin, a famous Hollywood screenwriter, is known for having his best ideas while he is showering. 

As a result, he has a shower installed in his office so that he may take a shower whenever the necessity presents itself. Determine what it is that you require, and then proceed.

It is important to have the correct tools. A flipchart and pens of various hues can be found in the home office that I maintain. There is always a significant question on there, and it will be whatever is preoccupying my thoughts during that particular week.

 I am continually adding to it by jotting down thoughts as they come to mind. The other night while I was in the kitchen preparing supper, I suddenly had a brilliant idea, and I dashed upstairs to jot it down on a pad.

 If I don’t jot down these thoughts as soon as they come to me, they are lost forever; therefore, you should always keep a pen and paper close at hand. 

A good way to produce and record your thoughts is to be aware of the instruments you require.

You shouldn’t be terrified of having an abundance of ideas. Begin with rephrasing the question, “What are we attempting to achieve?”, and then get ready for a plethora of new ideas. 

The response that comes to mind initially is seldom the correct one. It is critical to establish a setting in which individuals can “brain dump” and feel free to convey a large number of thoughts. 

There is no such thing as a “bad” concept, even if it does not ultimately turn out to be the most viable one. Keep in mind that the likelihood of coming up with excellent ideas improves when more ideas are generated.

Become someone who collects ideas. The collision of previously existing ideas can give rise to brand-new ones, and one can find inspiration in a wide variety of settings. 

I am always taking screenshots of images and websites and snapping pictures of signage in retail establishments. 

Always keeping your eyes peeled is a good method to compile a collection of photos from which you might draw inspiration at a later time. 

Examples like that provide me with fuel for my inspiration and help me keep my creative muscle in shape, even though I don’t know if or when I’ll ever utilize it.

Pick the environment that best stimulates your creativity. I adore the flashes of inspiration that come to me while I’m traveling for work, or when I’m waiting in London between appointments, or even when I’m just walking about the office building. 

During my time working at My previous office, one of my favorite places to hold meetings was a cool Convertible that had been renovated and parked on the official site. 

When we are confined to our houses and unable to move about, it is often challenging to locate environments that can inspire us. However, sometimes all it takes to change things up is to move from one location to another. 

For example, if you usually work at a desk, try sitting in an armchair or moving to a window where you can take in the scenery. 

Moving around, particularly in the fresh air, is another approach to foster more of those “eureka!” moments in your life. 

Therefore, if you have a concern or a problem, take it for a stroll outside and see what the clean air has to offer.

4. Reading can help you Boost your Creativity

Something out of the ordinary to the reader, if you aren’t much of a reader, just read something for the sake of it. Reading stimulates our thought processes, but if you stick to the same literary subgenre over and over again, it will not only get tedious, but it could also hinder your creative side. 

Changing the type of book you read or reading some poetry will give you the sensation of taking a deep breath of clean air. If you choose to read a mystery novel, it will even allow you to figure out how to solve a conundrum, in addition to providing an escape from the monotony of everyday life and allowing you to experience the world through the eyes of someone else.

How Reading and Creativity Go Together

You may not be surprised to hear this, but reading and being creative go hand in hand!

Researchers from the National Taichung University of Education did a study on the link between creative thinking and reading and writing.

The researchers had 196 college students fill out a long questionnaire that asked them, among other things, how much time they spent reading and writing. They also had the students take a test of their creativity.

According to the findings of the research, students who devoted a greater proportion of their time to reading and writing had much higher levels of creative performance. 

According to the findings of the study, an individual’s level of creative thinking is proportional to both their outlook on reading and writing as well as the quantity of time they devote to these activities.

If you wish to cultivate your creative abilities through reading, you need to bear in mind the following three crucial aspects:

Read Books That Will Spark Your Creativity

Books that teach you how to do something might be a great source of inspiration for the things you wish to do. You can study books that focus on a particular component, such as how to enhance your writing skills, how to select a topic to write about, or how to structure your speech, to name a few examples.

And the more how-to books on the subject you read, the more different input you will receive, and the more ideas you will be able to store and combine in your brain, giving you the ability to generate something completely original.

Your imagination can be subconsciously improved by reading fiction.

The connection between reading works of fiction and creative output is not quite the same as it formerly was. When you read fiction, the author intends for you to use your imagination, think critically, and fantasise about the events that take place. 

This is something that needs to be done in order for you to fully understand the logic and the ideas that are presented in the book.

Reading engages your brain’s right hemisphere, which is responsible for your imagination, and scientists have come to the conclusion that reading can indeed help extend your imagination. 

Reading physically exposes one’s mind to new ideas and opportunities, therefore one could say that reading is one of the best ways to expand one’s horizons.

The use of one’s imagination is a great way to foster creative and innovative thought. Without the use of one’s imagination, coming up with fresh ideas and products will be impossible. 

Before you can actually build something, you need to have an idea floating around in your head first. People would not be able to develop anything if they lacked imagination.

5. Use Different and Variety of Mediums

Many creative people, including artists and musicians, have entertained the idea of working in more than one medium. It’s possible that an artist who specializes in watercolor painting would like to learn how to paint with oils, that a sculptor would like to try their hand at sketching, or that a visual artist would like to try their hand at performance art. 

Changing the medium, form, style, or genre that one works in may appear to be a difficult task; nevertheless, it may really be helpful and provide artists with a chance to enhance their creative output.

Use Different Mediums

 Feel free to combine the two, and then paint anything you choose. Engage in some form of drawing. 

Try giving each of your concepts a second chance by redoing the drawings for them by hand and seeing if any of them turn out differently this time.

 If you are able to do so, you should make an effort to disassemble it and then reassemble it in a different method.

Extending One’s Reach

There have been a lot of notable masters who have been successful in more than one medium, despite the fact that there have been a lot of famous artists who are famous for working inside a single medium.

 For instance, Bob Ross was successful as a Painter as well as a sculptor, and Pablo Picasso experimented with a wide variety of artistic styles, ranging from pointillism to poetry. 

As a result of the fact that most artists are accustomed to thinking in a way that is symbolic, aesthetically pleasing, and abstract, they frequently have the ability to transfer their skills to other fields.

The Power to Create

Exploring your creative potential through a variety of artistic mediums, in addition to your primary one, is an effective strategy. Working in a variety of different media allows you to explore new avenues of self-expression and experiment with a variety of different techniques. 

You will be able to think laterally and take chances if you use a genre or format that you are not used to working with because it will place new limits on you while removing old ones.

Multimedia Potential

Exploring a variety of artistic practices has a number of advantages, one of which is that it enables you to make connections between individual works of art and even between different types of media. 

You may, for instance, investigate the various ways in which a single topic can be portrayed, or you could produce complementary works that make the most of your progressing abilities. You can even combine your different artistic abilities to create multimedia creations.

Advancement in One’s Profession

There are some experienced artists who believe that if they create in more than one medium, it will be more difficult for them to promote themselves. However, with the advent of the internet, there are now more opportunities than ever before to sell your work. 

Switching to a different medium could be the key to unlocking your creative potential and giving your work the edge it needs to stand out from the crowd if you feel as though you are creatively mired in a rut.

6. Use mind maps

Your brain will be able to process information more quickly and come up with more creative associations between your ideas if you use visual stimuli along with your thoughts and ideas. 

Since a mind map is first and foremost a visual thinking tool, using visual stimuli alongside your thoughts and ideas will have this effect.

Once you get your creative juices flowing, there’s a good probability that ideas will start coming at you from every which way. 

Taking notes of them is absolutely necessary in order to prevent any ideas from being lost. What distinguishes the act of recording these concepts in a Mind Map from the act of scribbling them down in a notebook, then? The answer is rather straightforward: connections. 

Your brain will have an easier time making connections between various lines of thinking if you link your ideas together and give them branches. Because of these connections, you will be able to develop your creative ideas further and transform them into something that can be experienced.

Create a mind map when you have finished brainstorming, preferably with a friend. Because it has the propensity to grow and grow as you investigate the issue, mind mapping is one of the most powerful organizational tools available today. 

Obviously, this method can be used with a number of other approaches. The web application Mindomo is quite helpful. 

Consider the Situation in its Totality- Look at the Bigger Picture

The process of mind mapping is an excellent tool that may be used to assist individuals in conceiving original answers to challenging questions. In most cases, when we are trying to find a solution to an issue, it might be easy for us to become stressed out since we are forcing ourselves to think of a solution (which rarely ever works). 

Because it enables you to view the wider picture, mind mapping is an invigorating option that can be used to develop ideas when trying to find solutions to problems.

Taking a step back from your Mind Map once you have established a certain subject as the major notion of your Mind Map and then recording your thoughts in relation to this subject will give you a perspective on the situation that is more objective. 

Once you have all of your thoughts recorded onto the various branches, you will be able to see graphically which portions of your map require more development. 

This will allow you to evaluate your difficulties as a whole and discover any gaps in your thinking.

7. Be Critical of your work But avoid being Overly Critical

Do you think You can be creative and have a critical eye at the same time; the two are mutually exclusive. It’s kind of 50: 50 I would say!

These are two distinct procedures, and they must be carried out in two distinct stages of the process. Put everything down on paper, no matter how much you might be tempted to convince yourself that it’s a waste of time.

According to a recent study that was published in the Academy of Management Journal, there is an unexpected benefit to criticism, and that is the fact that it might inspire innovation. 

In his previous role as a software engineer for Samsung, the co-author of this paper, Yeun Joon Kim, who is currently pursuing a doctorate in management at the Rotman School of Management at the University of Toronto, was exposed to a significant amount of feedback, which served as the impetus for this study. 

To be more specific, he questioned whether or not being given feedback at work enhanced his performance there.

Critique pertains to the final stages of the design process when you’ve accumulated a sufficient number of ideas and concepts to begin the process of selection.

Why Constructive Criticism is Beneficial to Creative Work

When you hear someone criticize your idea, you should make an effort to gain anything from the experience. 

A useful strategy is to pay close attention to the criticism, maintain an attitude of intellectual curiosity, and ask oneself, “Why is my workmate suggesting this opposing position that is not in line with what I see?” 

Perhaps there is a concept that is even more influential lying dormant behind the two of our perspectives. 

The criticism transforms into a constructive force, concentrating the efforts of the group to get past their shortcomings and make the basic concept even better.

The collective actions of those participating are where the key to effective criticism in innovation can be found. 

Those who wish to offer criticism are required to phrase their ideas as constructive and beneficial suggestions. 

Those who are the subject of criticism have an obligation to use the feedback they get to grow intellectually and refine their thoughts. 

When practiced with an open mind and a healthy dose of deference, constructive criticism can become the most cutting-edge kind of original thought.

 It has the potential to be fascinating, passionate, entertaining, and always motivating. Let’s build the constructive and optimistic phrase “Yes, but, and” by combining the two phrases “Yes, and” and “Yes, but.”

8. The right tools are Essential.

The right tools are essential. I have a flipchart and brightly colored pens in my home office. 

There’s always a big question on there, whatever I’m thinking about that week. I’m constantly adding to it, scribbling down ideas as they come to me. I was cooking dinner the other night when inspiration struck, and I dashed upstairs to scribble it down on a pad.

 If I don’t write these ideas down right away, they’re gone, so make sure you have a pen and pad nearby. Understand the tools required to generate and capture ideas.

9. The Six Thinking Hats developed by Edward De Bono

Six Thinking Hats by Edward De Bono

• Systematically take into consideration the concerns, challenges, decisions, and opportunities at hand.
• Using Parallel Together, we can come up with more and better ideas and solutions if we think like a group or team.
• Reduce the length of meetings significantly while maintaining their efficiency.
• Reduce the amount of disagreement that occurs between members of the team or attendees of the meeting.
• Encourage innovative thinking by rapidly producing an increased number of superior ideas.
• Make sure your gatherings are lively and focused on getting outcomes so that others will want to take part.
• Explore the areas beyond the obvious to find viable alternatives to the problem.
• Find the potential in things that other people only view as difficulties.
• Think of things in a lucid and objective manner.
• Consider the issues from the novel and unorthodox vantage points.
• Carry out exhaustive assessments.
• Consider the issue from every angle.
• Maintain control of egos and refrain from “turf protection” Achieve significant and meaningful outcomes in a shorter amount of time( Source)

10. Create some room for your creative side

Create some room for your creative side. Taking the first step towards creating the appropriate conditions is making the decision to make room for it. When our schedule is packed with back-to-back calls and responsibilities, it will be difficult for us to come up with those major ideas. 

Therefore, set time limits in order to leave room for free-flowing ideas and speech. 

By leaving space in your agenda, you might implicitly grant yourself permission to be creative.

11. Make yourself an idea collector.

Make yourself an idea collector. New ideas emerge from the collision of old ones, and inspiration can come from anywhere. 

I’m constantly screenshotting images and web pages and photographing shop signs. 

Being on the lookout is an excellent way to amass a library of images to draw from later. I recently needed to get my new Puppy a Stroller and discovered a pet Blog online. 

I liked the messaging on their website so much that I screenshotted it. I’m not sure if or when I’ll use it, but examples like that keep me inspired and my creative muscles flexed.