5 Ways to Enhance Your Creativity

We're born creative. However, this innate characteristic becomes buried as we get older. Our logical left brain usually takes the driver's seat. Here are 5 ways to help you unearth your creative self.

1. Surprise Your Mind. List laughable, ridiculous, outrageous and bizarre ideas. Don't limit yourself to ideas that other people consider "sane," "reasonable" or "logical." The best and most creative ideas stem from silly ones. When you're in a creative mode, you're suspending judgment on ideas you generate. You simply list them all down and never worry whether they make sense or not. Allow yourself the freedom to think outside the box.

2. Aim for Quantity. Generate loads of ideas for you to go through later. It's normal that your first few ideas won't really be fresh. The gems will come out later so it's important to keep going. With a large list of ideas, you'll have more to choose from, adapt or combine. Creativity is not coming up with something new from nothing; creativity is the ability to create something novel from ideas/things that already exist by combining, improving or refining them.

3. Be Playful. A relaxed and playful attitude fosters creativity. Those creative juices flow best when you're not restrained by your logical, left brain. Toy with ideas and forget about being too careful. Be a child again and play.

4. Believe that Everything has a Solution. An optimistic outlook always leads to solutions, no matter how impossible a problem or task may be. Often when a solution can't be found, all that's needed is for the problem to be redefined. Or when you think you're stumped, surprise your mind with silly solutions then work backwards, leading to the original problem. Cultivate an attitude of continuing search for solutions.

5. Let Go of Your Fear of Failure. Don't expect to do something perfectly for the first time. Thomas Edison tried about 1800 things for the perfect filament for the incandescent lamp. Fear of failure is one of the major factors that can hinder your creativity. Instead of looking at failed attempts negatively, look at your failures as learning opportunities. Failing isn't fun, but neither is doing nothing.

About The Author

Shery is the creator of WriteSparks! - a software that generates over 10 *million* Story Sparkers for Writers. Download WriteSparks! Lite for free - http://writesparks.com

MORE RESOURCES:

Creativity is job-saver - Houston Chronicle

Collins College site designed to spark studentsā€™ creativity - Bizjournals.com

Mattel Ucreate Music, Games Capitalizes on Your Kids#39; Creativity - Gizmodo

Program reflects creativity - Brentwood Press

table border=0 width= valign=top cellpadding=2 cellspacing=7trtd width=80 align=center valign=topfont style=font-size:85%;font-family:arial,sans-serifa href=http://news.google.com/news/url?sa=Tct=us/3i-0fd=Rurl=http://www.brentwoodpress.com/article.cfm%3FarticleID%3D21183cid=1287976261ei=K45mSfncNKXfmQeGluXLBAusg=AFQjCNEJ4YXfEQsQUlgdmxGvIiN8S3Yk5Qimg src=http://nt1.ggpht.com/news?imgefp=-eUp5I6aOzQJimgurl=www.brentwoodpress.com/Media/4/jpg/2009/1/UsersuserbrentwoodDesktopConvertedPhotoDBReflections.jpg width=80 height=53 alt= border=1brfont size=-2Brentwood Press/font/a/font/tdtd valign=top class=jfont style=font-size:85%;font-family:arial,sans-serifbrdiv style=padding-top:0.8em;img alt= height=1 width=1/divdiv class=lha href=http://news.google.com/news/url?sa=Tct=us/3-0fd=Rurl=http://www.brentwoodpress.com/article.cfm%3FarticleID%3D21183cid=1287976261ei=K45mSfncNKXfmQeGluXLBAusg=AFQjCNEJ4YXfEQsQUlgdmxGvIiN8S3Yk5QProgram reflects bcreativity/b/abrfont size=-1font color=#6f6f6fBrentwood Press,nbsp;CAnbsp;-/font nobr2 hours ago/nobr/fontbrfont size=-1Founded in 1969 by the National PTA, the Reflections Program was created as an avenue for students to express their bcreativity/b while receiving positive b.../b/font/div/font/td/tr/table

Children#39;s creative writing class is Saturday at Writers#39; Gallery - Yucaipa/Calimesa News Mirror

table border=0 width= valign=top cellpadding=2 cellspacing=7trtd valign=top class=jfont style=font-size:85%;font-family:arial,sans-serifbrdiv style=padding-top:0.8em;img alt= height=1 width=1/divdiv class=lha href=http://news.google.com/news/url?sa=Tct=us/4-0fd=Rurl=http://www.newsmirror.net/articles/2009/01/08/news/07news.txtcid=1287879816ei=K45mSfncNKXfmQeGluXLBAusg=AFQjCNFlNyYrXcu4v6DginGH7GczDLhfWQChildren#39;s bcreative/b writing class is Saturday at Writers#39; Gallery/abrfont size=-1font color=#6f6f6fYucaipa/Calimesa News Mirror,nbsp;CAnbsp;-/font nobr15 hours ago/nobr/fontbrfont size=-1Does that writer need an outlet for his/her bcreativity/b? The Writers#39; Gallery in Yucaipa will present a Children#39;s bCreative/b Writing Class on Saturday, Jan. b.../b/fontbrfont size=-1a href=http://news.google.com/news/url?sa=Tct=us/4-1fd=Rurl=http://www.berwick-advertiser.co.uk/leisure/Writers-with-murder-in-mind.4851777.jpcid=1287879816ei=K45mSfncNKXfmQeGluXLBAusg=AFQjCNE1GI4NpeQcfo8qinxmGinEZx08sgWriters with murder in mind/a font size=-1 color=#6f6f6fnobrBerwick Today/nobr/font/fontbrfont class=p size=-1a class=p href=http://news.google.com/news?sourceid=navclientie=ISO-8859-1rls=GGLG,GGLG:2005-22,GGLG:enncl=1287879816hl=ennobrall 2 news articles/nobr/a/font/div/font/td/tr/table

ARTISTS GUILD NURTURES CREATIVITY - Santa Ynez Valley Journal

Nurun Names Richard Shuback Executive Vice President, Executive ... - FOXBusiness

EE Times#39; 5th Annual Creativity in Electronics (ACE) Awards ... - MarketWatch (press release)

Part 1: develop your decorating creativity in the new year - Examiner.com

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Author says Memphis is short of workers with creative skills - Tri State Defender

Creativity - Google News

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