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Practical Ways to Find Creativity When You're Feeling Uncreative
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Creativity expectations
Our expectations of how creativity should look like block us. Creative inspiration is all around us, but we don’t see it because we've grown up being taught to look for it in specific places.
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How to feel more creative
- Take a break. Give your brain some space to think of other things.
- Expand your definition of creativity. You’re probably conditioned to look for it in specific places. Break that mold.
- Limit yourself. Fewer tools and less time, counterintuitively, force you to be more creative.
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Creative Thinking Defined
Creativity is not just reserved for artistic tasks such as writing, painting or composing music.
Creative thinking is the ability to consider something – a conflict between empl...
Top Creative Thinking Skills
- Analytical. Before thinking creatively about something, you first have to be able to understand it.
- Open-Minded. Setting aside any assumptions or biases you may have, and look at things in a completely new way.
- Problem Solving. Using your creativity to solve important issues.
- Organization. Being able to structure a plan of action with clear goals and deadlines is vital.
- Communication. Strong written and oral communication skills to communicate your solutions effectively.
Examples of Creative Thinking
- Artistic Creativity. You don't have to be an artist for your work to have an artistic element. For example: Composing a new fundraising script for volunteers or devising a lesson plan that will engage students.
- Creative Problem-Solving. For example: Coming up with new procedures to improve quality or suggesting a way to improve customer service.
- Creativity in STEM. For example: Constructing a research model to test a hypothesis or devising a computer program to automate a billing process.
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Restrict yourself
Research suggests placing self-imposed limitations can boost creativity.
It forces your brain to come up with creative solutions to finish a project around the parameters you’ve ...
Re-conceptualize the problem
Instead of thinking of a cut-and-dry end goal to certain situations, creative people sit back and examine the problem in different ways before beginning to work.
If you find yourself stagnating by focusing on generic problems, try to re-conceptualize the problem by focusing on a more meaningful angle.
For example: Instead of thinking “What would be something cool to paint?” rather ask, “What sort of painting evokes the feeling of loneliness that we all encounter after a break-up?”
Create psychological distance
Creating “psychological” distance may be useful for breaking through a creative block.
Try to imagine your creative task as being disconnected and distant from your current position/location - this may make the problem more accessible and can encourage higher level thinking.
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Concept creep
... or moving the goalposts, it happens when problems never seem to go away because people keep changing how they define them.
This can be a frustrating experience, because you don't r...
Relative comparisons
These comparisons often use less energy than absolute measurements. For e.g, it’s easier to remember which of your cousins is the tallest than exactly how tall each cousin is. Human brains have likely evolved to use relative comparisons in many situations because they often provide enough information to safely navigate our environments, with very little effort.