How to increase your creativity

2024 Author: Malcolm Clapton | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 03:44

A crisis of ideas is normal and natural. But how to get out of the crisis and build up your creative potential (the terrible word “creativity” is already knocking at your door) - this question often arises before people of creative professions: designers, decorators, bloggers, photographers. Jordan Driediger, entrepreneur, conference speaker, blogger and writer based in Toronto, and head of his own company, DM2 Studios LLC, has compiled a list of ways to reclaim and increase your creativity when you suddenly get stuck.

Creativity is our natural component, an indispensable function of the human brain, the ability to create is given to us by nature. The result is the expression in the outer world of our inner world. But on the way to self-expression and new heights there can be only 2 barriers: external and internal. You can bypass and break these barriers, and here's how to do it.

Find your source of inspiration

Finding your “muse”, your source of inspiration and stimulus for creativity is one of the most important tasks. It seems that all this is obvious, but you will be surprised how little people pay attention to finding their source of inspiration and how few people themselves can answer what exactly inspires them.

Inspiration and stimulus for “creativity” can be found in nature, in music, in people, in memories and even in specific situations in life. If you find what inspires you, then you do not have to wait for inspiration to visit you: you can always spur your "creativity" just by referring to this source of yours.

Pay attention and notice what makes you exclaim out loud or to yourself "Yes, I want to do this!", "I have an idea!", "Yes, that's great!" Do you have such a source of inspiration?

Surround yourself with everything that is close to perfection

The author of this post discovered his favorite music not only because he listened to many talented musicians, but also because he began to listen to what those whose work he likes listen to. It always happens this way: good creative people draw inspiration from the greats, and the greats are guided and inspired by the creativity of geniuses.

Explore and surround yourself with great, high-class art, music, great books, and especially wonderful people. All of them will help you create your own pattern, a kind of "bar", quality standards and the level that you want to achieve, creating your music, videos, blogs, designing or doing some other creative work. Choose what and those who "push you forward".

There is nothing wrong with copying and learning high quality experience and samples in your field. As Pablo Picasso said (and later Steve Jobs liked to repeat): "Good artists copy, great artists steal." I will support and agree with Picasso only on one thing: copying and “stealing” is worth successful methods, not finished products and works of other people.

Create! Create constantly

What was the watershed moment that made Edgar Allan Poe, a couch potato and grim recluse, into a remarkable writer and an inspiring example for millions? He began to write. If you do not use your creative potential, do not “be creative”, then you will never be able to grow as a creative person. Try something original, something new, try on a role in life that requires creativity, and practice those roles all the time.

"Creativity" is either flourishing (even if the first result of your creative trials is not what you expect) and will develop, or wither away. You need to move by the method of trial and repeated attempts. Behind every great canvas in the art gallery are dozens of sketches, crossed out sketches, and rejected options that you don't know about, that you won't see.

All the great people of the past - from Da Vinci to Edison - began to re-create after the first attempt failed. What sets these creative people apart from everyone else? They worked on their product / project until the result in reality coincided with the image that they had in mind.

Cross boundaries in your creativity, mix different things

The author of the post, as a designer, writer and musician, noted for himself that high-quality creative growth is possible only with the development of one's skills in parallel in different areas. As you improve your skills as a musician and as a designer, you also improve your creative skills as a designer, and as you improve your skills in creative professions and achieve better results, you will achieve an increase in communication skills in contact with the audience.

Have you noticed how people achieve all further success in life by applying the rules that helped them succeed at the beginning of their life? The successful athlete in business is guided by the rules that have helped him achieve success in sports. The biologist is attentive to the little things and the rules, not only in his work, but also in photography as a hobby, etc. Your knowledge and qualifications in one field of activity, in order to apply them and increase creativity in another field: skills can always be applied in a new way and transferred to another field of activity.

Have fun in moderation

Earlier we talked about how important it is to find your source of inspiration. It is important to find your "muse". And we often replace the absence of a "muse" with … entertainment (by the way, in English these words are similar: muse and amusement; the author says that we replace the absence of thought and inspiration with entertainment). Yes, entertainment is essential for all people, and it can have a positive effect on your creativity. But visual entertainment such as your favorite iPad with movies or TV shows should serve as a way to expand your own imagination, not replace it.

TV, for example, generally does not require any creativity or thought from you: if you don’t believe, then observe the expressions on people's faces when they are watching TV carefully. Their eyes are wide open and their minds are off. A series or TV program “does” all the work for you, they create a picture of the imaginary world for you, they do for you. Films and TV shows can stimulate new forms of creativity, but they cannot replace them.

To train and develop your creativity, look to literature, audio books, music as a way to entertain yourself. All of them stimulate your imagination (this is the kind of stimulus we often need in the modern world, where everything is overflowing with images and there is so little room for imagination).

Pay attention to yourself and your health

If you work in an industry where creativity is the foundation of everything, then you probably know that a couple of hours of focused work and inspiration can do much more than a day of hard work. Distractions can kill the entire creative process in the bud - be it people, conversations, surroundings, noises, objects, or circumstances. And how ailments distract! Therefore, take care of yourself, pay attention to your body, try to be healthy and regularly clean up your workplace. Quality is more important to creativity than quantity, so make sure your home, work, and your own body don't become a barrier to your creative success.

Ignore critics and detractors

In creativity, a necessary component is self-expression. But everything that an artist, designer, musician, journalist, writer creates for a wide audience, puts him at risk: he is open to attacks from critics, the crowd and idle reasoning. In business, in sports, in art and in life in general, you will have to face a barrage of criticism that can break you and destroy your faith in yourself, with someone who feels that they can assert themselves only by trying to "trample" you in every possible way. Be open to constructive comments and work on yourself (by the way, you can become the most ruthless critic of yourself); but ignore those who simply "troll" you, let their negativity serve as your motivation: history does not remember the names of those who attacked with reviews and derogatory responses to people who create something new and truly great. History remembers innovation, creativity and the ability to create inspiration for others with the power of thought. Therefore, get inspired and create!