Before thinking about how to be more creative, let me begin to point out some real barriers that some people seem to have when wanting to enhance creativity, have a think if any of these things apply to you and your life;

1. Lack of time. This is not as major as you may think. Linking thoughts and ideas only takes seconds. It can happen anytime, anywhere. Provided you are in the right state and pay attention to your own experience.

Creativity in my opinion is more about the quality of the time you have and being receptive to yourself. Though this does take some time.

2. Fear of being judged. Creativity results in unusual ideas and perhaps even being different in some way. They can be thought of as strange, odd, or challenging. Fear of being considered weird, stupid, or different often kills creativity. If I feared people thinking any of those things about me, I would not bother getting out of bed in the mornings; I love the fact that people think I am all of those things!!

3. Lack of self-esteem. When you do something creative, you go beyond the bounds of what has been safe and familiar in the past, to yourself and maybe even others. When you are not sure about yourself, being different in any way can feel risky or make you feel vulnerable. The danger is that you give up your new insight to just blend in. Smash out of those shackles!

4. Fear of failure. This inhibits us. If you are making a new connection in your brain there can be no inherent “right” or “wrong” about it. Failure can only have two meanings really; firstly, it didn’t work in the way you wanted it to. Secondly, someone else did not like it. But so, what??!! I have to tell you all that I get many comments on how I generate so many successful projects and am often asked how I do it. I always point out that these projects are only about 10% of what I have imagined. The other 90% didn’t work or didn’t get out of my brain.

Creativity is not reserved for genius only. Einstein was brilliant but he is not necessarily the best model of creativity for us. You do not need specialist expertise to be creative. The fruits of your creativity may manifest in many, many different ways I expect so.

If at any time you doubt your ability to be creative, remind yourself that several times every night you create an entirely new dream, which you script, act, and watch, which involves all your senses and has effects that can last long after they are over. This creation is so effortless that most people don’t even recognize it.

How to be more creative.

Ok, so how does one go about getting more creative? Let me give you some ideas;

1. Find the right frame of mind. Explore what states you associate with being creative. Discover properly what it is that triggers and maintains your creativity. What’s your best time of day? The best environment? Do you need to be alone or with others or alone among others? Do you need sounds or silence or background sounds? Build a profile of your creativity state, then make time and space for it regularly instead of waiting for some divine intervention and for it to just happen on its own.

2. Cultivate dreaming. Pay attention to your experience of life and attention to your existing creativity rather than dismissing daydreams and dreams. Please don’t allow yourself to waste what you may already be discovering by ignoring it.

3. Ask yourself “What if?” “What else?” and “How else?” Always go beyond what you first thought, and find more and more different ideas.

4. When and/or if you hit a problem, pretend your usual solution is not available. This can work in many different ways. If your PC crashes today, how else might you do your work? If you usually argue face to face, what would happen if you wrote your feelings down instead? Some solutions may be no better than the ones you’re used to: others may offer you brilliant new opportunities. Do something different.

5. See how many different results you can get with the same ingredients. I am sure many of you know that there is a cookbook called “Cooking 1-2-3” by Rozanne Gold, in which every recipe is made out of only three ingredients.

Some recipes use the same three ingredients but different processes or quantities come up with different results.

You can have some great fun by taking an everyday object and imagining or thinking about how many other uses it can have, you can even think about how to combine them with other objects.

6. Think of different ways to do the familiar. Change the order in which you do things, use different things, use your less favored hand; as soon as we break the routine, we move from a state where we are on auto-pilot to one where we are alive and alert. You exercise unfamiliar brain connections and help build new links in your brain. A glorious feeling!

7. Look out for the difference that makes the difference. When you encounter something that strikes you as different, ask yourself what it is about it that is so different new or unusual. Where does the key difference lie?

I want to mention a strategy that I have used for many years and that is the Disney Creativity Strategy.

The Disney creativity strategy is for developing your dreams and giving them the best possible chance of becoming reality. It is named after Walt Disney, who often took on three different roles when his team was developing an idea; the dreamer, the realist, and the critic.

The strategy separates these three vital roles involved in the process of translating creative ideas into reality so that they can be explored separately for maximum clarity and effect.

The usual way to use it is to allocate three roles to different people (realist, dreamer, and critic) to assess plans or tasks. Ask someone to act as the dreamer and tell you all the possibilities of the idea. Ask someone else to examine exactly what would be involved in putting it into practice (realist), and someone to take a hard look at it and evaluate its strengths and weaknesses (critic). You may want to rotate the roles. If doing it on your own, be sure to keep the roles very separate and write them down. I do this with lots of my ideas and with changes I want to make in my life.

I suggest that you have some fun being creative and doing things differently to generate more creativity. It feels wonderful and if you have found that your progress to success or the outcomes you desire has been blocked or gone stagnant, then think about being more creative in how and what you are doing.