10 Easy Ways to Spark Your Creativity Now
Have your creative ideas stopped coming as frequently? Unfortunately, it happens to the best of us. Here are ten ways to get out of a creative rut:
Create an art vision board:
Vision boards get overlooked a lot when it comes to inspiration. Most people hear the words 'vision board' and think it sounds woo-woo, and some think it sounds like too much work. The truth is, a vision board can be an excellent way to get your mind back into a positive and excited state.
2. Surround yourself with the color blue:
Check out this article about the influence of blue on our creativity.
3. Meditate:
The practice of meditation is well worth a try. It can feel hard initially, but it can become an integral part of your creative process, with practice.
Check out this article about how meditation can not only increase your creativity but your cognitive processing as well.
*You do not need to exploit other cultures to meditate. The act itself can be done without buying props, using sacred objects, or appropriating language and cultural meaning. Meditation only requires you to sit and be with yourself and your thoughts.
**Yoga practices are about sustaining ourselves in ways that have nothing to do with money or material possessions.
Here are a couple of articles that discuss this:
Yoga in America Often Exploits My Culture—but You May Not Even Realize It
How We Can Work Together to Avoid Cultural Appropriation in Yoga
4. Walk it out:
Walking is one of the most amazing ways to think through anything. Walking can help you get out of your head and get back into your body. The act of walking even became the basis for philosophical teaching called Peripatetic School.
Peripatetic teaching originated in the Aristotelian school of ancient Greece and refers to the action of walking, discussion, and deep learning.
5. Give Yourself Restrictions:
The next time you are trying to solve a problem, try limiting the things you can use to develop a solution. You might find yourself coming up with new and innovative ideas that you might not have considered otherwise.
6. Have a good cry (or laugh):
There is a growing body of research surrounding the benefits of expressing emotions and the connection to creativity. Not only is having a good cry cathartic, but it's also regenerative when it comes to creativity. Once upon a time, we believed artists to be tortured souls who needed sadness, drama, and strife to be creative. However, now we understand it's not just sad emotions that produce outstanding creative work. Positive emotions are just as beneficial in creating work that speaks to others just as profoundly.
7. Writing:
As much as writing can be for other people, it always involves some form of self-reflection. Writing things out on paper creates a path to clarity and understanding. You can begin to acknowledge the fears, doubts, and doubts that may have gone unnoticed, helping you move through any difficulties to get back to your creativity intentionally. I write about tackling fear in another post here.
8. Mind Mapping:
There are many books and articles on mind mapping, here are a few that I enjoy:
Mind Mapping Basics
Mind Mapping Book
TEDx Talk on Mind Mapping
9. Write Lists:
There is a prevalent (and practical) form of creative writing that many writers use to spark ideas; List-Making. Lists are a great way to spark our unconscious processes. Lists are very much like mind mapping in that they spark pattern recognition, help us discover connective meaning, and ignite ideas hidden in our subconscious minds.
10. Repetitive tasks:
Tasks like knitting, crocheting, coloring, and paint-by-number, let you feel like you are doing something, but actually, it's so easy and repetitive that your mind can wander.
Check out this great article on Allowing the Mind to Wander.
My favorite repetitive tasks are doodling and gardening! What are yours?
