5 Ways to Enhance Your Creativity

Were born creative. However, this innate characteristic becomes buried as we get older. Our logical left brain usually takes the drivers seat. Here are 5 ways to help you unearth your creative self.

1. Surprise Your Mind. List laughable, ridiculous, outrageous and bizarre ideas. Dont limit yourself to ideas that other people consider "sane," "reasonable" or "logical." The best and most creative ideas stem from silly ones. When youre in a creative mode, youre 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. Its 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, youll 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 youre 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 cant be found, all thats needed is for the problem to be redefined. Or when you think youre 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. Dont 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 isnt fun, but neither is doing nothing.

Copyright © 2003-2004 Shery Ma Belle Arrieta-Russ

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