“I gradually realized that I was seeing another example of creative ebb, another step by another art on the road that may indeed end in extinction.”― Stephen King
“There's
no such thing as writer's block. That was invented by people in
California who couldn't write.”― Terry Pratchett
One
thing I've learned very early on in my entrepreneurial life is that
you're going to have times when your mind simply goes blank.
Not
a creative thought to be found.
Even
experts lose their creative genius at times. In fact, there's a lot
of evidence to support that as your age matures, your
creativity declines,
unless you proactively nurture it and strive to be more creative on a
daily basis.
At
any rate, you'll experience times when your creativity seems to
utterly disappear. It could be from an accumulation of stress. It
might be a result of being incredibly busy. You may simply be trying
to solve a problem where you cannot visualize a good solution. When
you're momentarily stumped on a problem, it can be very difficult to
pull yourself out and start getting more creative again.
It
is not just writers who suffer from short-term creativity blocks.
There
will be times when you despair because your creative genius appears
to abandon you. Fear not. There are many ways you can help yourself
to come
up
with more creative
ideas and
eventually, solve your problem.
Through
my
own personal experiences with failure,
I've had to (on many occasions) force myself to discover new and
unique ways to get my creativity back. As an entrepreneur, if you
hope to become successful in the world of business, there's no other
option. You must find a way to be more creative again.
Based
on everything I've tried, and what works for me, here are 37 powerful
ways for entrepreneurs to be more creative. They won't all work for
you, but if you test out some of these tactics, it shouldn't take
very long to get your creativity flowing again.
Here
we go:
1. Gather New Ideas and Resources
Be
on the look for new ideas and inspiration within your areas of
interest, at all times. Read widely. Use the internet as a learning
tool. Take
an interest
in
what's going on in the industry around you. Keep a bookmark folder on
your browser or in your inbox, containing anything you find
interesting that you feel you might refer to again. This is your
rainy day fund, you never know when you'll need some creative
inspiration.
2. Move On to Another Activity
Often
our best ideas come when
we don't even realize we're thinking about a problem.
If you move on to another activity, your mind will continue to work
subconsciously on the problem you left behind. How many times have
you frustratingly given up trying to remember something, only for the
missing thought to pop back into your head later when you were least
expecting it? This happens to me all the time, so embracing this
subconscious creative process has become a large part of my workflow.
3. Brainstorming
Brainstorming
can be a highly effective way of coming
up with new creative ideas.
You could combine this with a mind map and start by writing your
general problem in the middle of the page. From there, think of some
very general areas to focus on, drawing these as offshoots from the
central idea. You can then turn to each of these offshoots and build
more conjoining ideas, and continue breaking these ideas down further
into more digestible bits, until you've started to find what you're
looking for.
4. Shift Negative Thoughts Into a Positive Mindset
It's
incredible how powerful something as seemingly simple as changing
your mindset
can
help you be more creative. Tell yourself, “I can figure this out.”
“I'm open to any ideas that anybody can come up with.” “I know
there must be a way to solve this”, or “what better solutions can
I find to this?” If you repeat these positive thoughts to yourself,
rather than focus on a more negative approach where you're the victim
of the problem at hand, you are far more likely to get a rush of the
creative inspiration that will actually help you solve your problem,
and far less likely to throw away possible solutions that come to
mind.
5. Think of Good Memories
You
don’t need to restrict your positive thinking to just the problem
at hand. If you can think back to successful, happy moments in the
past, it will make it much easier for you to come up with inspiration
right now. It is much simpler to come up with original thoughts now
if you have happy memories of your creative successes in the past.
6. Meditate
Meditation
can be an incredible way to calm your mind. Some of the benefits
of meditation
are
increased focus, patience, calmness, clarity, insight and
perspective. A side effect of improving all these is greatly
increased levels of creativity.
7. Clarify Your Values
We
all follow a personal set of values, whether we realize it or not. We
build our values system as we age, and this is very much how we look
at life (and the greater world around us). Take time to reflect on
your values. The act of analyzing your personal values system is
likely to help you be more creative in the short term.
8. Take a Break From the Mundane
If
you live a life of organized routine, you are probably highly
productive and efficient. However, the organized routine does
nothing to help your creativity.
If your mind feels blank, break your routine for a day. Do things
differently. Change the way you go to work. Meet new people. Eat new
foods. Do something you’ve never done before. Just be different for
a day. The “new you” is likely to come up with new ideas, as
well.
9. Avoid Being a Perfectionist
As
I've talked about very frequently, being
a
perfectionist
is
not only bad for your health, but also bad for your creativity.
Perfectionists spend so much time focusing on getting the details
correct, that they rarely take the time to pull all the way out and
think creatively about new solutions that are outside of the comfort
zone of what they're good at. If you are worrying about
perfectionism, your brain has little space left for creative
thinking. Don’t wait for an idea to form fully before sharing it
and working on improving it.
10. Determine Your Goals
Goal
setting can be an awesome, incredibly liberating process. For me,
goal setting allows me to remove commitments and requests for my
time, that aren't directly related to my immediate goals. Spend time
thinking through your long-term targets and then break them down into
smaller bite-sized, shorter-term action items. You will find that the
process of doing this will send your mind into creative mode, and
will make abundantly clear what you should and should not be focusing
on. Of course, you may already have goals ― most successful people
do ― in which case, you should start measuring how much progress
you're making toward achieving your goals, and whether you should be
coming up with future action items to get you to the next level after
you nab what you started out aiming for.
11. Stimulate Different Areas of Your Brain
We
all have different strengths. Some of us learn best visually; others
are audio learners while there are many kinesthetic thinkers who
learn best by doing things. If you're struggling to be creative using
one area of your brain, try moving to another, even if it's not an
area where you're traditionally strong. If you struggle to come up
with a solution to your problem in a discussion, try visualizing a
solution to your problem ― or perhaps you could go through the
physical process of constructing a model. This is one of my favorite
ways to be more creative.
12. Draw a Picture
One
particularly good form of inspiration for those who are more visually
inclined, is to draw a picture. Many designers I know from
Creative Live,
take daily drawing breaks to spark their creativity. It doesn't
matter so much what you begin drawing, it can naturally evolve and
take a completely unpredictable path. Go into your drawing session
with the acceptance that the end result isn't as important as the
process of actually taking time to doodle.
13. Physically Change Your Surroundings
A
change of scenery may be all you need to encourage your brain to come
up with fresh ideas and get more creative again. Take a day trip to
somewhere that can stimulate your senses, venture down to a nearby
park, or go for a walk and find somewhere new to do some work without
any place in mind beforehand. A change of work venue may be enough to
shift your thinking pattern.
14. Surround Yourself by Nature
Many
people find that they get a creative jolt, simply by being present
outdoors. Fresh air, birds chirping, sunshine, and other natural
scenes to take in, are usually such a positive change of pace,
especially for a city-dwelling businessperson. It's no surprise that
so many
people find inspiration
and
creativity in nature.
15. Go Green or Blue
It's
not always possible to physically go into the countryside, especially
if you live in a major city. However, some of the benefits of this
can be gained from simply being
in a green or blue environment.
These colors are thought to help clarity and reduce confusion. If you
are after even more creative, original thoughts, surround yourself
with vivid colors, such as in a flower garden or an art gallery.
16. Organize and Declutter Your Personal Space
There
are entire websites devoted to decluttering your life. Many of the
decluttering advocates believe that by decluttering your life, you
can declutter your mind. This definitely works for me.
17. Get Active With Exercise and Movement
Working
out stimulates your brain, creating new neurons in the hippocampus
region. Physical activity like going for a run, taking a walk around
the neighborhood, or even doing some pushups and sit-ups, can
stimulate new, creative thought patterns. Many people use their
exercise time as a way to disconnect from work and find deeper
inspiration.
18. Focused Breathing Exercises
Breathing
exercises may not be as energetic as most other forms of exercise,
but they can be just as beneficial to helping you relax, destress and
let your mind wander into new territories. Conscious breathing
exercises, is a daily essential for helping me recenter and get
focused back on my core priorities when I find myself straying away
(or watching videos on Facebook).
19. Talk a Walk
Again
a walk may not burn as many calories as other forms of exercise, but
it gives you ample opportunity to move your mind away from thinking
about your problems, and instead create a space for coming up with
creative solutions.
20. Do Yoga
Yoga
is another low-impact method you can use to relax your mind, ease
stress, and develop more creative thought processes. Just be sure
you're engaging in a type of yoga that allows
for a bit of relaxation,
amidst the workout.
21. Let Yourself Daydream
Don’t
feel guilty if you aren't totally focused all the time. Daydreams
often result inflashes
of peculiar insight.
Allow your mind to wander if you feel you really need it. Just make
sure that you have a notepad handy to record any creative ideas ―
regardless of whether or not they're directly related to the problem
at hand ― that result from your daydreams.
22. Consult Someone You Trust
You
don't need to isolate yourself if you're in a creative rut. Some of
these activities, like brainstorming, work very effectively if you
bounce ideas around with other people. Asking somebody for their
opinion is not a sign of weakness. Actually, you're likely to get
some of your best creative ideas by getting opinions from people who
think differently than you. Acknowledge that you don’t have all the
answers yourself, and build a network of creative thinkers around
you.
23. Call a Friend or Family Member
Sometimes
simply talking to a good friend or family member, even if it's
completely off topic from the matter at hand, can help relieve stress
that's blocking you from discovering the solutions you're looking
for. This is particularly the case if you haven't spoken with them in
a while. The amount of pleasure I get from catching up with a friend
I care about, and haven't spoken with much in a few months, is often
enough to kick my brain into action.
24.
Have Family Time
Spending
time with your family is likely to reduce your stress levels, and
hopefully, provide you with more energy to put towards your creative
thinking.
25. Go to Bed Early
It
is a myth that you can improve your productivity by reducing your
sleeping hours. A few extra hours of sleep are likely to refresh you,
and you could very well wake up with fresh new ideas tomorrow.
Having
tried the majority of these activities to get me back into being more
creative, I can say that at the very least, you'll be mentally
refreshed by the time you complete most of them.
For
Indian entrepreneurs, this means new ideas, inspiration, and insight
that can revitalize the performance of your business. Don't feel
guilty for taking time away from your business in the short term,
because the result of properly nursing your creativity will be a
much-improved state of mind.
