Day 163: Whacking Your Creativity

We can easily get stuck in our thought patterns and fail to see new and innovative ways to approach our ideas. We get stuck in habit and fail to see the creativity that can be applied in every situation and to every problem. There are many ways to give yourself a whack in the side of the head in order to change up your thinking patterns.

• Imagine How Others Would Do It

There are always people we admire in our lives, especially in our specific field. There is someone doing what we want to be doing and we look up to them. There are even people who are doing something completely different from what we want to do that we admire greatly. When struggling with something look to these people and slip into their particular mindset. What would they do? How would they approach it? What innovative changes would they make?

• Change Questions

When solving a problem or dealing with a dream we are liking trying to find an answer to a question. How do we do this? What can do to change that? Is there a way past this? No matter where we are at in life there is usually a question waiting to be answered. Often a problem we can encounter in the fact that we never adjust that question. We know the question and we try and find the answer. Instead of finding the answer try finding a different way to say the question that might generate a different answer. How can you change your question?

• Don't Force It

We have a solution to a problem and we try and force it, pushing and prodding it into a place we think it will fit. Frustration can arise when we think we have the right answer, but it won't fit into our equation. We all try and force things every now and then, we want something and we do everything in our power to see it come around. Yet, when we force something it usually isn't the right thing for the situation. If we let it be more than often, the correct answer will arise. What are you forcing? Where could you ease off?

• Check Your Timing

Timing is absolutely everything. You can have the most amazing idea, but if you have the wrong timing it will be complete rubbish. Consider when this idea would truly make the biggest impact. What if you waited five months? Or would it have been better last year? Consider every aspect of your timing, if it's off your idea will fall flat on it's face. Make sure you have considered every time in order to find the right hour. How's your timing?

• See Yourself Creative

We are all creative, yet hardly any of us consider ourselves to be creative. We tell ourselves that we have to be born with it and only artists are the creative ones. Yet the more we tell ourselves this detrimental lie, the more we begin to believe it and the less creative we become. If you think of yourself as creative, you'll begin to act that way and discover that the ability to be creative was there all along. So the question is, are you creative?

• Flex Your Risk Muscle

If you're not failing, you're truly not trying. You have to fail a few time in order to really succeed. If you don't fail, you're not risking enough and your dream will never become all it could be if you put your neck on the line just a little bit. Everyone has a 'risk muscle' and it's about time you start strengthening yours. If you don't use it every now and then, you will lose the ability to flex it because it will be paralyzed with fear. How can you exercise your risk muscle?

• Get Rid Of Excuses

We all have our excuses and to us they seem like really valid reasons to not do X, Y, or Z. We avoid what we really want to do because we convince ourselves that something else is more important or truly in our way. Excuses never convince anyone else, they only fool us and keep us from making it with our dream. It's about time to take the veil away from our own eyes and realize our excuses are not valid in the least. What three factors will make it difficult to reach your objective? How can you get rid of these excuses?

All seven of these creative problem solving techniques were inspired by a pack of cards designed by Roger von Oech in 1988. These cards are called the "Creative Whack Pack" and give sixty-four ways to look at your idea and problems in a completely new light. I have always been inspired by them and I would highly suggest checking them out here.

Until Next Time,
Lillian Merritt