10 Ways to Boost Your Creativity

By Julie Plenty

Creativity is your birthright — but can often be hidden in the everyday. To facilitate your personal development and self growth, here are some creativity tips you can use to resurrect, refresh and enhance your creative faculties.

1. Look after yourself.
   Sleep well/Eat well/meditate/do what you enjoy and do it more often (if it is life enhancing!). Creativity is reduced when your senses are dulled.
   
   
2. Do something different.
   We do so much on auto — the route we take to work, newspaper we read, TV programmes we routinely watch. Vary one element of your regular routine for a while. If feasible, take a different route to work, read a different newspaper (especially one you would never read!).
   
   
3. Be curious about your world around you.
   It always amazes me when people don't see what's around them. See the area you live/work in as a tourist would. How would you explore it if you were a tourist?
   
   
4. Read a book on something you previously had no interest in. ...and see if you can create interest whilst reading it. It is my belief that no topic is boring or uninteresting if it is enthusiastically and creatively presented. You know what you like — or you like what you know?
   
   
5. Do something childlike once in a while.
   ...and you don't have to have the children there as an "excuse" to do it. Sit and play on swings/draw/paint "silly" pictures — have fun. Children are incredibly creative and as adults we could learn a lot about how they view the world.
   
   
6. Create/prepare quiet time for yourself every day.
   Not to do anything (unless it relaxes you), but just to clear and refresh your mind. We are human beings, not doings. There are times when our crowded schedule and minds don't allow space and time for the creative to be welcomed in. Einstein liked to go sailing in the afternoons after working in the morning. Okay, most of us don't have this opportunity, but you get the point.
   
   
7. Ask "what if" questions.
   Just for fun and see where the answers take you. What if that building could talk, what would it say, what stories would it tell?
   
   
8. We often make assumptions.
   ...about the people we work with (especially if we don't like them!) Try treating someone you don't particularly like at work as if you liked them (yeah I know...) What would you say, how would you act towards them?
   
   
9. Write and storyboard your life.
   ...as if it were a script you had to sell to a film company.
   
   
10. Talk to people you routinely ignore or dismiss.
    Imagine their lives from their point of view, they often have viewpoints which you may never have considered before and carry a small notebook with you to jot down new ideas / sensations / feelings as they come to mind.

Do one, some or all of these and you’ll soon notice a rise in your creativity, personal development and self growth. •

© 2004 Julie Plenty

About the Author
Julie Plenty is a Personal and Business Coach, who helps writers, artists and photographers prosper in their business by helping them build a strong personal foundation, because they ARE their business. For more self growth and personal development articles, and to sign up for her Life Design newsletter, visit: self-help-personal-development.com.

09/11/04