Creativity originates from the search for the unexpected and going beyond your own experience.
When it comes to creativity, many people grab their heads and think about how to generate better ideas than those that come to mind. Research in this area does not provide clear and definite answers. Below are the most successful practical methods that will help you develop your creativity.
All these methods are good for everyday tasks that occur in our lives. Try some of them yourself and see which ones are most suitable for you.
Research has revealed an insidious problem. It turns out that many choose the path of the least psychological resistance" and as a result rely on existing ideas, try to use the resources that are at hand.
Voluntary restrictions greatly increase creativity. They help even creative people to go beyond their comfort zone (they also have it).
One of the most famous examples when Dr. Seuss created the best—selling of his books is "Green Eggs and Ham". He did this after an argument with his editor, who challenged him to write a book using 50 different words.
Working with texts, you've probably found that when there are some limitations, they lead to quite ingenious workarounds. For example, when you were going to create a text of 800 words, but you only need 500.
Try to set a number of limitations in your work — and you will see how your brain will find creative solutions within the framework that you have set.
Usually creative people have a habit of making sense of problems and do it more often than their less enthusiastic colleagues. This means that instead of making a quick final decision, such a person sits down and examines the situation from different angles before starting to work on it.
Here is one example: often I need to make an article that will be popular. If I approach working on a text with the thought a la "What can I write to get a lot of retweets?", then I'm unlikely to be able to come up with something good. But if I take a step back, look at the problem from the other side and ask myself the question "Which articles really resonate with people and attract their interest?", then in the end I concentrate on the more fundamental part of the task and, most likely, I will achieve the goal.
So, if you have a stupor when solving a common task like "What would be so cool to draw?", try to rethink the problem, focusing on its more significant aspect: "What picture will cause those who look at it, a familiar feeling of loneliness to almost everyone after the breakup of a relationship?"
It has long been known that if you distract yourself from solving a problem for a while, it can eliminate blocks on the way to solving it. It also helps to create a psychological distance. People were able to solve twice as many problems when they were asked to think of the source of the goal as something distant.
Try to imagine your creative task, distancing yourself from it a little, as if being at a certain distance.
Although many studies talk about how useful it is to switch and dream, it seems that all these conclusions miss one important part.
The less work has been invested in solving a certain problem, the less fantasies and dreams work to achieve the goal. That is, it helps to dream when you have already invested a lot of creative effort into solving the problem. Therefore, before you use daytime sleep and dreams as an excuse for your laziness, be honest with yourself and have fun first!
Reading or experiencing an absurd experience helps to recognize images and develops non-standard thinking (the subjects read Franz Kafka, but the researchers also suggested such stories as "Alice in Wonderland").
Our brain is always trying to make sense of the things it perceives. Surrealist art, on the other hand, puts it into an "accelerated" mode of operation for the short period of time during which we read or look at such a subject. For example, reading Isaac Asimov's short story "The Last Question" can help you.
The technique of the absorbing state helps in the preparation process and works much more effectively than attempts to combine work with creative thinking.
For example, if you are a writer, it will be much more productive to do all the necessary research first and only then start working on the text.
For a long time, scientists have been saying that the state of happiness is ideal for creativity. But a 2007 study on creative processes in the workplace showed that thinking is stimulated by both positive emotional peaks and negative ones.
Of course, a bad mood can also be a killer of the desire to create, it is not as universal as positive emotions caused by joy, excitement, love, and so on. No one advises to bring yourself to negativity, but the next time you find yourself under the influence of strong emotions, try to use them to create something useful. The end result may surprise you a lot.
Playing sports also helps to improve our creativity. Thanks to physical exertion, you get adrenaline and a good mood. And as we already know, a positive attitude stimulates creative thinking.
If you have a stupor in solving some task and you want to rest, then take a break for physical exercises. While your brain continues to work on a subconscious level, training will accelerate the emergence of useful ideas.
According to a study on the processes of hypothetical thinking, a look at past situations with the question "What could have happened?" allows you to increase creativity in a short period of time.
According to research, it is better to solve analytical, strategic tasks using a subtractive model of thinking, thinking about what could be obtained in the circumstances. Expansive problems are better solved with the help of counterfactual thinking, thinking about what could be added to the situation.
