To increase creativity, you need to do two things. You have to encourage it first. Second, you need to train your brain. Get started with both now and you can experience greater creativity today.
Encourage creativity and you will increase creativity. This is true for most things you want to see more of in your life. Encouragement works wonders. But how do you encourage creativity?
First, by paying attention to it. Your subconscious mind tends to give you more of what you pay attention to. If you ignore the creative aspects of your life, you are telling your subconscious mind that they are unimportant. If you consciously notice when you are creative and look for opportunities to be creative, your subconscious mind will start feeding you more creative ideas. Look for it and you will find more.
Another way to encourage and increase creativity is to write down your ideas. Keep an "idea journal". If you do this regularly, you'll notice that you often start to have more ideas once you start writing. Such a thought can normally be forgotten, but if you write it down, you can remember it, your subconscious works on it, and it can turn into something very creative.
You can also encourage greater creativity in yourself by putting creative ideas into practice. For example, if you paint or write, try something new. Even just taking a different route to work to see if it's faster can help. The point is to make you work outside of his regular patterns.
A simple change of environment can encourage creativity. If you want more creativity in your love life, go up a mountain with your partner. If you write, try sitting on a roof and writing. If you need new ideas for your business, take your laptop to the park and sit by the duck pond. A change of scenery can get your brain out of its rut.
Creativity training
If you want to dramatically increase your creativity, develop creative habits of mind. Look at a good comedian and you will see that she has trained her mind to look for a "different angle" on everyday things. You can train your mind to do the same.
For example, challenge assumptions until it becomes a habit. Looking for ways to get customers into your store? Stop and say, "Do I really need more customers?" The question suggests other creative solutions, such as finding ways to make more money from existing customers or ways to reduce expenses. This can lead to more profitable ideas. Challenge assumptions to increase the creativity of your solutions.
As you drive to work, pick anything around you at random and ask how it might relate to whatever problem you're working on. A helicopter overhead might make you think of a way to keep track of where the car is going when you lend it to your kids. The palm tree can lead to a new design of patio umbrellas.
The above techniques are called “Assumption Challenging” and “Random Presentation” and they are two classic creative problem solving techniques. There are dozens of them. Train your brain to use them regularly and give it a little encouragement and you can really boost your creativity.
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