You follow incredible artists, read breathtaking books about far away lands, written by incredible authors. They all create wonderful new worlds and stories that make your heart beat faster and you think: “Wow! I wish I could be this creative!”. But not everyone can be creative…or can they?

Creativity, by definition, is the state or quality of being creative, the ability to transcend traditional ideas and to create something new and imaginative. It is the ability to produce original and unusual ideas.

In today’s world, we are constantly being bombarded by new information, books, tv shows, movies, games and we think: “how can I be creative? Everything has already been thought of before. Not everyone can be creative…not today”

The fact that all of these books movies and tv shows are coming out every single day is proof that anyone can still be creative. In the words of Maya Angelou:

“You can’t use up creativity. The more you use, the more you have.”

– Maya Angelou

“So, if anyone can be creative, why can’t I?” you might think. “What do i have to do to be more creative?”

HOW TO BE MORE CREATIVE

A simple first step is to surround yourself with art, surround yourself with what inspires you, and art doesn’t necessarily need to be painting, it can be photography, books, movies, sculpture, you name it.

A big part of creativity, and something that most people don’t talk about, like it’s a taboo or something, is that creativity is knowing how to hide your sources. You don’t have to steal someone’s idea, but you can interpret it in your own way. Show everyone what it’s like to see life through your eyes. You can gather up a bunch of different ideas that have already been done and just mix them all together in your own way and BAM! you just created something new! You were creative.

Tell me, who are some of the most creative people out there in the world? Children. Why is that?

Children’s minds have no boundaries. They’re not yet equipped with scientifical and social facts that tell them that something isn’t possible, that something doesn’t exist. So everything in their minds is possible and that opens up so many possibilities. If you’ve ever talked to a child, you’ve probably been bombarded by the question “why, why, why?”. Children question everything. They question so much, things we usually take for a fact without a second thought, that our reply usually is “Oh! um I’m not sure. That’s just the way it is!” and only then do we realize that we never actually took the time to think of the reasons behind some of the things that are part of our daily lives.

Questioning things makes you open up your mind to new possibilities and you can make up your own theory.

“Others have seen what is and asked why. I have seen what could be and asked why not.”

– Pablo Picasso

The biggest inspiration we can ever get, comes from our own life. We can take inspiration from the adventures of other people and we can read about how they felt, but we weren’t there, we can imagine how it felt but it will never be the same thing as living it. Obviously we’re not all gonna go on a life or death adventure and we can’t all move to Rivendell, no matter how much we’d love to do it, but we can get ourselves out there! Start a new activity. Take a walk in the woods. Visit a new place. Challenge yourself!

Doing these things will give you life experiences that you can later extrapolate into something different.

For example, imagine you challenge yourself to run a 5k. You go through all the steps. You feel the commitment, you feel the muscle pains, you feel those days when you don’t reallyf eel like doing it but you know you have to and then you feel the victory of when you reach your goal. It feels good! Now turn your 5k into a story.

A story about an elf who needs to deliver this long lost magic book to the most powerful wizard in the realm, but along the way he finds challenges, he gets hurt, he gets discouraged, but he fights on and he reaches his goal. He gets to his destination!

And there you have a creative story from something as simple as a joke.

“To be creative means to be in love with life. You can be creative only if you love life enough to want to enhance its beauty. You want to bring a little more music to it, a little more poetry to it, a little more dance to it.”

– Osho

Don’t be afraid to voice your thoughts. Sometimes we’re trying to be creative and we brainstorm and come up with a ton of ideas that seem great at the time, but then we take a look back at what we wrote down and our brain starts sabotaging. “This is ridiculous! People are gonna think it’s lame. It’s not creative enough”. I know, we’ve all been there, but if you want my advice – run with the idea – develop it, give it a body, give it soul. The most ridiculous things on paper actually end up being the most creative in the end.

Take this idea for example: “A group spends 9 hours returning jewelry”

Sounds absolutely ridiculous! Well, that ridiculous idea just turns out to be one of the most famous and lucrative franchises of all time.

So you finally learned what it takes to be creative!

Now don’t just keep those ideas locked away in your brain or noted down on a piece of paper. Go on and do something with it! Sometimes we just get so caught up with being creative and writing down ideas, that we never take the next step and I know creating something can be scary.

We fear that it’s not going to be good. That we’re not going to be able to pull it off. But the scariest moment is always just before you start. Once you manage to get over that fear, things will flow.

“But I don’t feel inspired right now! I’m just gonna sit there and stare at a blank piece of paper and nothing’s gonna come out well”.

Fear not! Because Stephen King has some more words of wisdom for you:

“Amateurs sit and wait for inspiration, the rest of us just get up and go to work.”

– Stephen King

That’s right! If you just sit there and wait for inspiration to strike you, you’re not going to go very far. You can’t wait for inspiration to find you! You have to go and find her, and you’llsee once you decide to put your hands to work, your brain will start working differently.

You know what helps me to be creative?

When you guys like my posts, share, subscribe to my youtube channel and hit that notification bell to be up to date with all the creative content that I put out every week.

And for more creative tips and tricks I have tons of content available on my Patreon, to help you guys out.