Why is creativity so challenging?

Why is creativity so challenging?

Let’s face it, it’s easier to be busy than creative. Who doesn’t love that hit of getting little jobs done?

But if you fill your day thinking little, you can’t think big!

Your creative capacity is finite. Anyone with a busy working life or family, making constant decisions and problem solving every waking moment, knows it is possible for your mind to simply expire from mental exhaustion.

Equally, if you have no mental stimulation at all, you may feel too uninspired to be creative. The human mind is wired to creatively problem solve in response to its environment. The secret is to nurture opportunities to see and sense new things, when you also have freedom and space to let new ideas manifest.

How can you be more creative today? 

1. Time: Take a stand today and fight for time for your mind. Consider how to prioritise your life to formulate one slot every week when your soul can possibly be inspired. Only within that clear landscape can you sew the seeds from which completely new ideas may sprout. Set work boundaries that allow blue-sky thinking. Set a time limit to clear through critical chores, then give yourself fair warning before allocating a strict switch off time. Then get up and go somewhere else to clear the old train of thought.

2. Space/Environment: move away from intense work zones or places where your role is already defined as the fixer who reacts to every demand. Maslow’s hierarchy of needs dictates that you can’t reach the higher levels if you’re hungry, tired or at threat. So avoid noisy locations of sensory overwhelm. Create or go to a location that does not distract or distress you.

3. Inspiration: get out and see something different. Allow your senses to live a little. Go somewhere new. Only outside of your comfort zone will you discover what your brain may give you to survive.

Inspiration is the moment your mind spontaniously generates something new n response to a joyful event or observation.

In short, if you never take a break from grinding out deliverables at work and cleaning the kitchen at home, you’ll never experience the moment when you see the sunset, feed a horse, overhear a chance conversation, or fall in the lake which sparks your next great novel.

Good luck and keep thinking bigger.