Wily Walnut's Blog

Labels: creative thinking, creativity, ideas

Here's a new article I've just written on creative renewal. Seems appropriate for this time of year:

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CREATIVE RENEWAL: Emptying your mind for creative renewal

How to get over a creatively DRY period and refresh your mind

Creative renewal is such an important part of the creative process. Every mind goes stale after a while. You need to empty your cup. Go on, chuck out the dregs of the previous 12 months. Empty yourself. Become new again.

Why is creative renewal important?
We run on energy. Bursts of inspiration and enthusiasm take us only so far. Towards the end we are running out of steam. Scratching the leavings from the bottom of the bowl. We start to fade, becoming insipid and uninspired. Our work lacks light. There is no 'joie de vivre', no spark. What can we do? How can we get our freshness back? How can we revitalize our thinking? The only way is through creative renewal. We must renew ourselves, shedding the old skins and growing into a new form... kinda like Madonna! She must be thousand years old by now, and she just keeps re-inventing herself. More power to her, I say!

Continue reading article on Creative Renewal here.

Labels: creative renewal, creative thinking, creativity

I like this list of activities for getting into a creative mind state. Reminds you that sometimes the best ideas come when you...

1. Change state.
2. Do activities that let you relax and go into creative reverie.
3. Take an alternative perspective.
4. Have fun.
5. Stop trying so hard.

Source: 101 Ways to Brew Up A Great Idea

Labels: creativity

What role has the creative generalist?

Exploring ideas, beliefs and paradigms, you become a generalist.

But what role has the generalist in the increasingly niche-ified modern society, if he/she never commits to any one idea, I wondered?

Fortunately, Steve Hardy has answered this better than I could have done.

See his blog: The Creative Generalist.

But first read his brilliant 18-page manifesto: The Creative Generalist: How Broad Thinking Leads To Big Ideas

Labels: creative thinking, creativity, generalist, ideation

1. Describing aloud a real or imaginary object while you are observing it/imagining it, focusses your attention in such a way that you notice more and more details about it, enriching your experience of it.
2. It is recommended that you verbalize your description aloud to another person or to a tape recorder, so that you can play it back afterwards and get the full feedback loop experience.
3. The more sensory you make your verbalization, the better it is (for your brain!).

Labels: creativity, goethe, image streaming, win wenger

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Idea: Use simple 'reversal' thought exercises to shake up your thinking and make you more flexible and creative.

Example: We tend to think of what goes on in our mind's eye as 'inside' of us and what goes on in the world as 'outside' of us. What if you reverse that and look at the world as though it were inside your head. And when you close your eyes, imagine that what you see in your mind space is actually outside of yourself.

Think about it: Words were originally applied arbitrarily. A word was simply chosen to represent something. Man was called 'man'. Woman was called 'woman'. However those words become embedded in our consciousness. Like chewing gum stuck like cement to the sidewalk, they become part and parcel of the path we walk. Let's turn a high pressure hose on that sidewalk and blast that gum into the air to see what happens. Reverse things. What if in some altered reality men were called women? What if women were actually called men? Make up your own reversals and see what affect that have on your thinking.

Intentions: Let reversal thoughts gently lever your encrusted thoughts from their previously untouched foundations. By prising thoughts up like this, you allow space and room for new life to flow in. New life equates to freshness, novelty, flexibility and creativity.

Labels: creative thinking, creativity, thought exercises

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In our on-going quest for additional ways to rub the magic lamp to release the creative genie-in-us (genius!), here's another grain for the millstone....


Most of us are intrinsically wired to be helpful.


So that means, if you are struggling to get ideas going for your own selfish reasons, try and tap into your innate altruism instead.


You'll be amazed at how much more creative and productive you can be when you are inspired to help another, help a cause, or help save the world.


Many of us lack for meaning and purpose. We aren't inspired. We have no real drive.


But if you can find some cause that you can relate to... watch out world! Here come the new super heros!


Would Gandhi, Mother Theresa, Albert Schweitzer or the Dalai Lama have been nearly so dynamic without the causes that they championed?


Can you imagine Winston Churchill without WWII? Could Walt Disney have made Disneyland just for himself? Where would Bill Gates be without his vision of an affordable PC in every home?


We need to build, invent, create and make for each other....


Ciao,
Wily

Labels: altruism, creative thinking, creativity

What stops you from being creative? And how can you start being creative right now?

Here are some valuable pointers that I discovered in an 1997 article by top NLP trainer and author Joseph O'Connor:


How to STOP being creative:

1. Be remorselessly practical.
2. Be logical.
3. Follow the rules.
4. Be serious.
5. Don't be curious.
6. Avoid ambiguity -- jump to conclusions as fast as possible.
7. Believe that mistakes are wrong and will be punished.
8. Believe you are not creative. (It helps to have a narrow definition of creativity.)
9. Believe there is only one right answer and you know it.

How to START being creative:

1. Never mind if it is practical (for now).
2. Logic can't be proved logically so it can't be much use whichever way you look at it.
3. What rules?
4. Have fun!
5. Be curious.
6. Bathe in ambiguity and enjoy it.
7. Mistakes are feedback to get back on track again.
8. Believe you are creative!
9. There are plenty of right answers to go around.

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Labels: creative, creative thinking, creativity

What is creativity? What does it mean to be 'creative'?

Some people have a very particular view on what constitutes real creativity. They only see creativity in the invention of fictional worlds or marvellous works of art. And turn their noses up at 'simpler' acts of creativity such as finding a new use for a clothes peg (think of those little greetings card holders).

I take a very simple view of creativity.

I look at it as the verb: to create.

I could create a baby (magic wand at the ready!).

I could create a new way of better serving my website affiliates.

I could create a more effective way of educating my customers to the value of my products.

My creativity might be expressed by simply writing a short article like this one.

Does creativity have to be about being feted as the world's greatest sculptor or the author of a ground-breaking novel?

No.

Those are wonderful pinnacle expressions of creativity. And if it is your inclination to follow a dream of that scale -- go for it!

However, for ordinary every-day-use let's just think of creativity as this...

...Doing something, making something, creating something ... that would not otherwise be there unless you had actually decided to do it, make it, create it and then acted on that decision.

Creativity is for everyone. Everyone has genius. And that genius can be expressed in all kinds of ways: from the passe to the pragmatic to the profound.

(Anyone who says otherwise is an elitist knob-head! ...IMHO!)

Labels: creative, creativity