Become More Creative: Five Ways to Inspire Yourself With New Ideas
One of the most difficult parts of life is trying to summon up creativity when your mind is seemingly out of fresh ideas. Whether you are trying to come up with a great new business idea or a new piece of music or artwork, nothing is as infuriating as not being able to find ideas when you need them. Here are five easy tricks you can use to inspire yourself and uncork your creative juices.
Get a Change of Scenery
If you want to think of new ideas, you probably shouldn’t be trying to do it in the surroundings you see every day. Getting into a new place with some new scenery will get your mind out of its normal rut and challenge you to think in new ways. Try getting out into nature or taking a weekend trip to a nearby city you don’t visit very often. If you can change your setting, you will find it much easier to be creative.
Have a Brainstorming Session
Sometimes, all it takes is a single new thought to spark a string of new ideas. This is why brainstorming sessions between two or more people are so effective at generating creativity. Talking to someone else can help to introduce new ways of thinking about the problem you are approaching, potentially leading you to come up with the solution you’ve been looking for. Brainstorming partners can be friends, family members or just about anyone else, though it is helpful if the person you are brainstorming with has some relevant knowledge in the field you are discussing.
Work Backwards From the Solution
This approach works best when trying to come up with product or business ideas, but will work reasonably well for anything but artistic endeavors. Rather than trying to work forward from where you are, try working backward from where you want to be. For example, if you were trying to come up with a new product idea, you could start by thinking about what task you wanted the product to perform and then work backward from that to figure out how to design, make and market the product. Though the ideas will be the same, trying to start at a different point in the problem may help you to think of it in ways you didn’t before.
Let Yourself Get Unrealistic
One of the biggest constraints for creativity is the fact that many people shut potential ideas down as soon as they decide that they could be unrealistic. Though this may seem like it streamlines the creative process, all it really accomplishes is to eliminate ideas that may be perfectly good or even great. Rather than questioning whether or not an idea you may have in unrealistic, ask yourself how you could make it a reality. Approaching ideas that seem unrealistic may even help you to come up with more creative ideas, as you will have to think in a more innovative fashion to come up with ways to make the seemingly unrealistic ideas real.
Write Down Every Idea, Even the Ones You Don’t Like
How many times in your life have you had an idea, only to let it slip away later? If you are trying to come up with creative new concepts, write down every idea you have, even if it seems silly. The idea may very well grow on you if you give it some more thought, and it might also spark other, related ideas if you go back and look at it later.
Pro tip: With JRNL, you can create a “creativity journal” that’s solely focused on capturing your ideas. Add an entry from your phone whenever you want to remember it.
Ultimately, there is no single formula for creativity, but employing these five simple tips will help to improve your chances of coming up with a great idea when you need it the most. Remember to also to give yourself time and not let yourself get too frustrated if you are having a hard time coming up with good ideas. The more you let that frustration get to you, the more difficult you’ll find it to recognize a great idea when it finally does come your way.
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