Believe in your creativity

We are all born creative, and then we spend many years learning not to be.  So step one is the most fundamental: allow the creativity back in. Make a list of things that hinder your creativity, and challenge yourself to remove these obstacles one by one. You may be surprised at just how easy this is once you have them identified. As you do this, begin to believe that you are creative, and that you and only you can take responsibility for your creativity. With that responsibility comes the reward – huge satisfaction, so give it a go.

Feed your brain

Our brains are self-organising systems of epic proportion. Their job is to make our world simple so that we may achieve the mundane and the complicated. Our job in return is to stimulate them to build new neural connections, to expand the range of thoughts and ideas, and to develop an increasing capacity for creative thinking. So feed your brain. Question. Link. Observe. Associate. Network. Experiment. Be curious. Do anything that will create new neural networks and new ideas.

Give your creativity space

As our neural tendrils spread and search to form new pathways, we need to give them space to crash and collide and to stimulate new thoughts and ideas. Our many years of learning how not to be creative have taught us to self-censor before an idea has time to mature. We need to build a new habit that allows space for exploration and idea generation before moving onto idea selection. So; Seed, nurture, grow, and then and only then harvest.

By Alex Pearson