Become More Creative
1. Creativity is a right brain activity. Practice daydreaming. Daydreaming is a right brain activity too. For 10 minutes every day, make yourself comfortable, close your eyes and let your imagination run wild. The more outlandish, the better.
2. Learn to visualize. Being able to see visual images in your mind stimulates right brain functions. For 10 minutes every day, try to actually see, in your mind, different objects or people you know. For example, get comfortable, closer your eyes and visualize a red apple. How about a green cucumber, your bathroom at home or your best friend.
3. Learn to free associate. This is the basis of brain-storming which is an important technique in producing creative ideas,
4. Steps 2 and 3 can be combined to make a more powerful creativity exercise. Make yourself comfortable and close your eyes. Select any two digit number and visualize it in your mind’s eye. Concentrate on it until a new image appears. Don’t try to see anything specific. Practice letting your mind do what it wants to do. This is the basis for free association. After a new image appears, concentrate on that one until another one appears. Continue for about 10 minutes every day. When you are concentrating on the images, try to see them as clearly as you can. Note the shapes, colors and other details of the images. This exercise will improve your ability to visualize and greatly enhance your creative abilities.
5. Fear is a major block to creative thinking. None of us likes to be criticized or thought of as strange. Creative ideas are often unusual enough that we may fear discussing them because of what others will think of us. Learn a relaxation technique and de-condition yourself to what others may say. This will allow you to move on to new, higher levels of creative thinking.
Number 5 reminded me of a joke. There is a new specialty in Psychology and it’s called “Psycho-ceramics”. It’s the study of crackpots.
6. Creativity involves the production of new ideas. To be really good at this, your mind needs a lot of good information to work with. Reading in many different areas will allow your mind to store different types of ideas and facts that can be mentally manipulated when you need new ideas. Besides books and magazines, don’t overlook the tapes and CDs that are available that you can listen to while driving. Learn as many new things as you can and your mind will use them to produce new ideas that you can use when you need them.
2. Learn to visualize. Being able to see visual images in your mind stimulates right brain functions. For 10 minutes every day, try to actually see, in your mind, different objects or people you know. For example, get comfortable, closer your eyes and visualize a red apple. How about a green cucumber, your bathroom at home or your best friend.
3. Learn to free associate. This is the basis of brain-storming which is an important technique in producing creative ideas,
4. Steps 2 and 3 can be combined to make a more powerful creativity exercise. Make yourself comfortable and close your eyes. Select any two digit number and visualize it in your mind’s eye. Concentrate on it until a new image appears. Don’t try to see anything specific. Practice letting your mind do what it wants to do. This is the basis for free association. After a new image appears, concentrate on that one until another one appears. Continue for about 10 minutes every day. When you are concentrating on the images, try to see them as clearly as you can. Note the shapes, colors and other details of the images. This exercise will improve your ability to visualize and greatly enhance your creative abilities.
5. Fear is a major block to creative thinking. None of us likes to be criticized or thought of as strange. Creative ideas are often unusual enough that we may fear discussing them because of what others will think of us. Learn a relaxation technique and de-condition yourself to what others may say. This will allow you to move on to new, higher levels of creative thinking.
Number 5 reminded me of a joke. There is a new specialty in Psychology and it’s called “Psycho-ceramics”. It’s the study of crackpots.
6. Creativity involves the production of new ideas. To be really good at this, your mind needs a lot of good information to work with. Reading in many different areas will allow your mind to store different types of ideas and facts that can be mentally manipulated when you need new ideas. Besides books and magazines, don’t overlook the tapes and CDs that are available that you can listen to while driving. Learn as many new things as you can and your mind will use them to produce new ideas that you can use when you need them.
posted by Dr. Yarnell at 7:01 AM
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