5 Ways to Enhance Your Creativity
BY SHERY MA BELLE ARRIETA-RUSS
We're born creative. However, this innate characteristic becomes buried
as we get older. Our logical left brain usually takes the driver's seat.
Here are 5 ways to help you unearth your creative self.
1. Surprise Your Mind. List laughable, ridiculous, outrageous and bizarre
ideas. Don't limit yourself to ideas that other people consider "sane,"
"reasonable" or "logical." The best and most creative ideas stem from silly
ones. When you're in a creative mode, you're suspending judgment on ideas
you generate. You simply list them all down and never worry whether they
make sense or not. Allow yourself the freedom to think outside the box.
2. Aim for Quantity. Generate loads of ideas for you to go through later.
It's normal that your first few ideas won’t really be fresh. The gems will
come out later so it’s important to keep going. With a large list of ideas,
you'll have more to choose from, adapt or combine. Creativity is not coming
up with something new from nothing; creativity is the ability to create
something novel from ideas/things that already exist by combining, improving
or refining them.
3. Be Playful. A relaxed and playful attitude fosters creativity. Those
creative juices flow best when you're not restrained by your logical, left
brain. Toy with ideas and forget about being too careful. Be a child again
and play.
4. Believe that Everything has a
Solution. An optimistic outlook always
leads to solutions, no matter how impossible a problem or task may be. Often
when a solution can't be found, all that's needed is for the problem to be
redefined. Or when you think you're stumped, surprise your mind with silly
solutions then work backwards, leading to the original problem. Cultivate an
attitude of continuing search for solutions.
5. Let Go of Your Fear of Failure. Don't expect to do something perfectly
for the first time. Thomas Edison tried about 1800 things for the perfect
filament for the incandescent lamp. Fear of failure is one of the major
factors that can hinder your creativity. Instead of looking at failed
attempts negatively, look at your failures as learning opportunities.
Failing isn't fun, but neither is doing nothing.
Copyright © 2003-2004 Shery Ma Belle Arrieta-Russ
Shery Ma Belle Arrieta-Russ is the
creator of
WriteSparks!
- software that generates over 10 million story sparkers for
writers.
Download WriteSparks! Lite for free.
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