5 Tips for Staying Creative
Creativity is a fickle friend. One day you feel as though you're smashing your targets and reaching all of your goals and the next all inspiration has abandoned you in your hour of need. What do you need to reignite that creativity when it feels like all hopes are lost? We think these tips will help:
1. Collaborate
Look for people in your line of work, and ask their advice. Social media is great for reaching out to the leaders in your field to ask what they’re doing, or how they’d approach a difficult task. Also, chat through your projects with your friends; they may not know what your particular interests are fully, but sometimes chatting around a subject with friends can spark something great.
2. Try meditation
Meditation is an integral part of many people's lives and why shouldn't it be? Mindfulness meditation has been linked to improving creativity as it increases resilience, stimulates the neocortex as well as improving our own emotional intelligence. By meditating we silence the noise in our heads that fill up our brains with stress and over-thinking enabling creativity to flow into your thinking brain freely. We'd highly recommend reading more into the brain and how you can improve your creativity.
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This is a great place to start if you want a quick look at what he does. If you want a good indepth watch start here!
3. Go for a walk
Sitting is the new smoking. The average person sits down for up to 17 hours a day. That’s an astonishing figure. Especially when you consider that a Stanford University study suggests that walking aids creative thinking. Indeed, Mark Zuckerberg, Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey, and LinkedIn CEO Jeff Weiner regularly have walking meetings with their staff. And if it works for Zuck...
4. Create the right mood
Setting the right tone for yourself can help massively to get you working productively again. If white noise works and you’re working from home you could always put the washing machine on - and it helps to get a jump on the chores, too. For some, listening to music helps, so plug in the headphones and put on your personal jam. For others, it’s a particularly soothing smell; light a candle, or apply your favourite perfume/aftershave.
5. Do something you love
Sometimes all it takes is perspective. Creativity comes to us when were are at our most excited, more passionate and above all, most engaged so why not try doing something you love? Whatever past time, hobby or work you find yourself enjoying, give it a go and see if creativity returns to you.
In a letter to his son, Albert Einstein said that the best way to creativity was to do something you loved. “That is the way to learn the most, that when you are doing something with such enjoyment that you don’t notice that the time passes,” Einstein wrote. “I am sometimes so wrapped up in my work that I forget about the noon meal.”
What do you like to do to promote creativity? Running, swimming, reading something completely different; switching off in front of the TV, or even trawling social media. Just don’t overthink it. One other great trick is to mix up your daily routine - it helps to do something different.
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