Practical Ways To Boost Your Creativity

image: huffingtonpost.co.uk

Creativity is all about coming up with new ideas and giving them life.

Today, I'll be sharing with you practical ways I know and/or have used to boost my creativity.

1. It is the muscles you use that grows and strengthens; so whatever the natural level of your creativity, use it more and you will see it grow. Have you noticed in boxing matches and wrestling matches, it is not the giant looking guy who usually wins? It's also true in the realm of creativity. It is not the most naturally creative guy who delivers the most but the guy who's built up his creativity through consistent practice and hardwork. And that is the method I follow in boosting my creativity. I often say that the only natural talent I have is working hard. I always manage to be always busy even when I join social groups people come to have a relaxing moment; I always end up turning it into a job and being active in the organizing team.
2. Always try out new ideas and ignore failure. I know too many people who don't want to fail at anything. If the likelihood of success in something they would like to do is high, they quit or postpone it. I am not like that. I don't focus too much on the question of whether I will succeed or not; I focus more on "am I going to enjoy doing this?" If the answer is a resounding yes, I do it regardless of the probability of success. That way I get to try out more ideas that a lot of my friends and I end up looking more creative.
3. Make and follow very few rules. I felt more like writing "make and follow no rules". The truth is rules define boundaries and the more rules you subject your life to the more boundaries you set yourself. I know people who seem to have a rule about everything. They have a rule for dealing with short people. They have a rule for dealing with yellow people. They have a rule for dealing with very rich people. They have a rule for dealing with bank staff. They have a rule for dealing with stubborn children. They have a rule for even carrying out their office work (like not picking work calls on weekends and avoiding gisting with lower level staff). They spend too much mental resources maintaining and updating their rules that there's little left to try something new.
4. Physical exercise. It helps strengthen your heart, widen your veins and arteries, and keep blood flowing in good quantity through your brain. I don't drive too often which gives me the bonus of enjoying a good daily dose of exercise. Plus I do push-ups and occasionally swim. In 2011 to 2013, I used to do pushups consistently 2 to 4 times a week (that's some respectable ~ 30 months stretch). And in 2013, I used to swim (almost) consistently every Sunday. Now mental exercise (work) has eaten all my time.
5. Join a community of very creative people. This helps you see as normal the extra work you are doing to build your creativity. And give you extra source of motivation to keep up the work.

And those are my practical tips to boosting your creativity. (sorry for the post coming late today; blogger was down this morning for a fairly long time).