For creative professionals, creative ideas are the fuel of their success. One brilliant idea can catapult their careers. But the challenge is how to be creative day in and day out.
In this article, I'll show you 10 practical and actionable tips to become more creative. I’ll be drawing from decades of experience as a writer and content creator who needs to create on-demand, as well as scientific studies and books on creativity and artistic life.
Jump to tip in this section:
What Is Creativity?
What is “creativity” anyway? And is it only for artists?
The Merriam-Webster dictionary defines creativity as “the quality of being creative,” and “creative” as “having the quality of something created rather than imitated.” Given that definition, we can say:
“Creativity is the ability to come up with something original or novel.”
With this definition, creativity isn't just for artistic folks. It’s not just about creating an original piece of artwork, writing, or music. It’s a quality you can have in your personal life and even at work. For instance, getting an idea for a new solution to a persistent problem is creativity. It includes not just artistic expressions but also problem-solving and innovative thinking.
Common Creativity Challenges: Why You Can’t Have More Creative Ideas
I’ve stared at a blank screen often enough to know that creativity doesn’t always flow like water from a tap. This experience is so common that writers have a name for it: “writer’s block.” For their part, visual artists get “art block.”
The once-flowing stream of innovative ideas slows to a trickle. The creator is in a creative drought. This may be why we have musicians who are one-hit-wonders. They have one brilliant idea, then fizzle out. What causes creative block? Below are some of the most common challenges that obstruct our creative ideas.
1. Doldrums: The Creative Rut
One possible reason you’re having creative block is that you’ve fallen into a rut. The brain is stuck in the same groove and can’t come up with something novel. Signs you’re in a creative run include feelings of apathy and lack of motivation. You may even be bored with the project you’re working on. You don’t feel inspired. When you’re in this state, it’s almost impossible to have fresh ideas.
Some of the techniques later in this article will help get your creative mind out of that rut.
2. Perfectionism: The Double-Edged Sword
"Have no fear of perfection—you'll never reach it." - Salvador Dali
Perfection isn’t the problem, as Dali points out. The problem is thinking you can achieve it and then beating yourself down because you don’t. This obsessive need to attain perfection paralyzes your creativity. And that’s because your sense of self-worth rests on your creative outputs.
But if you want to succeed as a creative, you must push through perfectionism and learn to embrace imperfection as part of the creative process. As Marcus Aurelius advised in Meditations:
“Set thyself in motion, if it is in thy power, and do not look about thee to see if any one will observe it; nor yet expect Plato’s Republic: but be content if the smallest thing goes on well, and consider such an event to be no small matter.”
3. Burnout: Navigating the Exhaustion
Burnout is a state of exhaustion. Just as you can experience mental, physical, and emotional burnout, you can also have creative burnout. Symptoms of creative burnout include:
- procrastination
- low productivity
- physical exhaustion
- anxiety
- unhealthy stress levels
- self-doubt
- irritability
- seeking solace from recreational drugs, alcohol, and other harmful activities
As a creative professional, you’re required to churn out creative ideas every working day. Your income, reputation, and career depend on it. But we don’t sustain the same level of creativity day in and day out. Creativity waxes and wanes. Placing constant demands on yourself to produce new ideas leads to creative burnout.
4. No Execution: Turning Ideas into Reality
Sometimes, coming up with creative ideas isn't the problem. Turning those ideas into reality is. Many creatives grapple with going from conceptualization to execution. But, the real value of a great idea is when it becomes a tangible output. Otherwise, all you've got is a string of unfinished projects. If you've got a notebook full of ideas for novels but haven’t actually started writing one novel, then this may be your creative challenge.
5. Fear: Ultimate Buzz Killer
Fear is the ultimate killer of creativity. It’s so pervasive that you might as well expect it. And expect to experience fear in many forms. Elizabeth Gilbert, in her book Big Magic: Creative Living Beyond Fear, writes a long list of the most common fears creatives have.
Here’s just an excerpt:
You’re afraid you have no talent. You’re afraid you’ll be rejected or criticized or ridiculed or misunderstood or—worst of all—ignored. You’re afraid there’s no market for your creativity, and therefore no point in pursuing it. You’re afraid somebody else already did it better. You’re afraid everybody else already did it better. You’re afraid somebody will steal your ideas, so it’s safer to keep them hidden forever in the dark. You’re afraid you won’t be taken seriously.… You’re afraid your best work is behind you. You’re afraid you never had any best work to begin with. You’re afraid you neglected your creativity for so long that now you can never get it back. You’re afraid you’re too old to start. You’re afraid you’re too young to start. You’re afraid because something went well in your life once, so obviously nothing can ever go well again. You’re afraid because nothing has ever gone well in your life, so why bother trying? You’re afraid of being a one-hit wonder. You’re afraid of being a no-hit wonder.
As you can see, there are many things that can get in the way of your creativity. Fortunately, none of them is invincible. You can do many things to get creative and start creative ideas flowing again.
10 Actionable Tips on How to Be More Creative
Experts haven’t reached a consensus on where creativity originates from. But they do agree that creativity is a skill. And that’s great news if you've been wondering how can you be more creative! Because it means that creativity can be learned and developed—by anyone. While we can't all be as great as Pablo Picaso or Jane Austen, we can all become more creative.
“It is possible, with lots of hard work, dedication, and timely help, to make a good writer out of a merely competent one.” - Stephen King, On Writing
With that in mind, the next time you’re experiencing creativity block, try one or several of these tips on how to be creative:
1. Take a Shower
Want to learn how to become more creative? Many people get creative ideas and insights while taking a shower. In a survey of 1,114 people, researchers found that 30% of respondents had Aha! moments in the shower.
How does taking a shower help you be more creative? One theory is that showering puts you in a relaxed state, and relaxation tends to activate the right hemisphere of the brain. In turn, scientists have found that just before a person has a moment of insight, their right hemisphere shows lots of activity.
Another possible explanation is that showering triggers the release of dopamine, a neurotransmitter that’s also known as the “feel-good” hormone. As a neurotransmitter, dopamine is important for sending messages between nerve cells. It’s important for learning, attention, mood, and sleep, among many other things. Dopamine is also the “neuromodulator of exploration.” It makes us want to try new things and explore the unknown, leading to psychological plasticity, which, in turn, is associated with increased idea generation.
2. Take a Nap or Go to Sleep
Of all the ways to be creative, this may be the most unusual. But in fact, the same research found that 79% of people got insights during their sleep. I’ve experienced this myself. I’ve solved a tricky physics problem (while pursuing a computer engineering program in university), rewritten awkward sentences, and figured out the lead for a sales page—all while dreaming. That’s why a common advice is to keep pen and paper on your night table. You want to capture your brilliant ideas as soon as you wake up.
Otherwise, they may burst like bubbles and disappear forever.
Once again we ask, why? Wagner et al. believe it’s because sleep consolidates and restructures new memories. This helps our brain to extract insights from what we already know, but faster. It doesn’t get those insights from thin air; it does help the brain come up with a new solution with the same information and knowledge. So, if you’ve been mulling over a creative problem for a while, taking a nap or getting a good night’s sleep may reveal the solution. Don’t forget the pen and paper!
3. Go for a Walk
Charles Dickens, Henry David Thoreau, Virginia Woolf, and William Wordsworth famously took long, frequent walks. Now we know their favorite activity is backed by science. In 2014, a Stanford study found that walking improves creativity, both during the walk and shortly after. Walking outdoors yielded the most benefits—100% of participants were able to generate one novel idea compared to 50% of those seated inside. But even walking on a treadmill indoors boosted the creativity scores of 81% of participants compared to those who remained sitting.
The Stanford researchers didn't have a single explanation for why walking increases the generation of creative ideas, saying it may be a complex combination of physical, psychological, and cognitive changes that occur with walking. For example, they say, it could be that walking frees the mind and allows new ideas to bubble up. They conclude that more research needs to be done, including on the effects of other forms of mild physical activities on creativity.
4. Restrict Yourself: Freedom in Limitations
It’s easy to be creative when you've got unlimited resources, and the possibilities are endless. But is it, really?
Sometimes, you don’t come up with creative ideas because there are no limits, no boundaries, and nothing to push you to think out of the box. It’s only when resources are limited that your resourcefulness can blossom. This is why necessity has become famous as “the mother of invention,” or as Plato put it, “its real creator… will be our needs.”
So if your well of creative ideas is running dry, try giving yourself a framework. For example, instead of just trying to come up with new marketing ideas for a campaign, why not give yourself limitations in terms of time, cost, or reach? You could sit down and ask yourself: “How can we promote Product Z to 2 million people and spend only $20,000?” Or, “What if we only had two weeks to do it?” And “What if we could only do it in person?”
5. Mash-Up: Unlikely Combinations
Another way to come up with creativity ideas is by combining two things that don’t usually go together. Business consultant Sam Horn calls this the Half-and-Half Technique. In her book Pop! Create the Perfect Pitch, Title, and Tagline for Anything, she describes the steps to coming up with an original idea—and word:
- Step 1. Take a piece of paper and divide it into two columns. Write down half of your Core Words in the left column and the other half on the right. (A Core Word is a descriptive word or phrase that expresses the essence of your offering, product, or brand.)
- Step 2. Combine the first half of the words on the left column with the second half of the words on the right column. Write them down.
- Step 3. Combine the first half of the words on the right column with the second half of the words on the left column.
- Step 4. Keep generating different mash-ups from the two columns.
And don’t limit yourself to combining parts of words. Try combining ideas, too, especially those that may even contradict each other.
For example, my daughter and her cousin placed second in a dance competition by performing the Philippine traditional dance, tinikling, to swing music and dance. And in my day job as social media manager of an international NGO, one of our successful campaigns was around “the ugly truth behind beauty products.” (Hint: It’s child labor.)
6. Brainstorm Creatively: Become an Idea Machine
Sometimes, to get new ideas, you just have to brainstorm differently. There are many ways to ideate other than just sitting down and doing a brain dump of ideas. One is the SCAMPER Method, and it provides a structure for coming up with unique ideas. It stands for:
- Substitute
- Combine
- Adapt
- Modify, Magnify, and Minify
- Put to another use
- Eliminate
- Rearrange
To apply SCAMPER, go down the list and use the word to elicit new ideas, for example:
- Substitute.What can I use instead of ___?
- Combine.What best elements can I bring together to come up with something new and better?
- Adapt.What can I adapt from what other people are doing, and that's working well?
- Modify, Magnify, and Minify. What extra features can I add? What aspect can I make larger? What parts can I tone down?
- Put to another use.How would people from different industries use it?
- Eliminate.What can I remove or simplify?
- Rearrange.What if I rearranged some parts or reversed the process?
Just going down that list would help you come up with at least a dozen new ideas. And you could ask a handful of questions for each step in the SCAMPER Method. It may feel like a chore to go through, but sometimes creativity is work.
“The muse, or the inspiration, does not just show up, it requires sweat as an offering.” - Claudia Azula Althucher, Become An Idea Machine: Because Ideas Are The Currency Of The 21st Century
7. Distract Yourself: Forget About It
It may sound counter-intuitive, but sometimes, creativity demands distraction, not focus. How many times have you gotten a new idea when you’re doing something other than your creative work? This has certainly happened to me while washing the dishes, cooking dinner, or watching a cozy mystery.
And I’m not the only one. In a 2015 study, researchers found that real-world creative achievement was higher in people with “leaky” sensory gating. In other words, people who were more easily distracted. They said it could be because these individuals were better able to integrate ideas from outside their focus of attention. It’s that whole combination magic again! On the other hand, they also found that for divergent thinking (coming up with as many ideas as possible in a short amount of time), laser focus was better.
So, if you’ve been struggling with a creative project and focusing hasn’t been working, maybe it’s time to do the opposite. Distract yourself with an activity that doesn’t have anything to do with the task at hand. Go mow the lawn. Play fetch with your dog. Watch a movie. Your next best idea may sneak up on you when you least expect it.
8. Discover Your Blind Spot: Consult a Devil’s Advocate
Another way to generate creative ideas is by seeking perspectives you may be missing. One way to do that is by sharing your ideas with a “devil’s advocate” or someone whose role is to criticize and oppose them. In his book Six Thinking Hats, Edward de Bono says a Devil’s advocate is important for identifying the potential problems, risks, and weaknesses of an idea.
It can feel very uncomfortable to approach a “Negative Nelly” and have them tear your ideas apart. Ultimately, this will help you uncover flaws and potential pitfalls—so you can make your ideas even better.
9. Crowdsource: Collaborate with Others
Sometimes, the best ideas are generated not by one individual but by several persons brainstorming together. The combined creative efforts of a group can result in ideas that are greater than the sum of individual contributions. This is because crowdsourcing creativity allows you to tap into diverse perspectives from individuals with different experiences and backgrounds. This can result in a richer pool of creative ideas.
Ideating with others also allows for the cross-pollination of ideas. A suggestion from one person can trigger new ideas or modified thoughts from others. Group members can build on or expand on each other’s ideas. And, when the responsibility is shared by the group, there’s less pressure on any individual, which can further free up their creativity.
10. Start a Daily Creativity Routine
Author, entrepreneur, and angel investor James Althucher says we all have an “idea muscle” that we all need to keep using. Otherwise, it'll atrophy. That’s why it’s not good to only flex your idea muscle when you need to be creative. Instead, exercise it every day. In fact, Altucher says everyone should write at least 10 new ideas. Every. Single. Day. After six months of doing this, you become an idea machine.
In The Artist’s Way, Julia Cameron also encourages daily practice to tap into your creativity and overcome artistic blocks. She recommends a daily practice of writing Morning Pages. Every day, right after waking up, write three pages of stream-of-consciousness writing. In longhand, not on the computer. It’s a way of journaling, identifying negative thoughts, and uncovering your hidden desires, yes. But it’s also a way to connect with your inner artist.
Don’t create only when inspiration hits. Create every day. In On Writing, Stephen King says when he’s writing a book, he writes every day—including on Christmas, the Fourth of July, and his birthday. He goes to his office, sits down, and doesn’t leave until he’s written 10 pages. Sometimes, he’s done by 11:30 am. Other times, “the words come hard,” and he's got to eat lunch at his desk and write until teatime.
Elevate Your Creativity with Envato Elements
Now, armed with these actionable tips, you can further elevate your creativity with Envato Elements. This comprehensive platform offers a plethora of creative assets, from templates to graphics. When you need inspiration, you can explore the thousands of templates with diverse styles.
The new AI-search tool also helps you explore the vast library of Elements in a customized and efficient way.
Or maybe you want to execute on your idea. Use the presentation templates to showcase your ideas. Or use the stock photos, videos, graphics, and other creative assets to create a mockup of your ideas. There are also graphical templates for everything from mind mapping and brainstorming. And you get unlimited downloads of all these assets for one small fixed subscription.
Never Run Out of Creative Ideas
As a creative professional, your creativity is your product. It’s your livelihood. But everyone grapples with creativity challenges. Nobody is equally creative every day. Some days are easier than others. Fortunately, creativity is a skill that can be learned. It’s a muscle that can get stronger.
In this article you’ve learned at least 10 different ways to be creative. It ranges from setting a routine and training your idea muscle to distracting yourself by doing something different. You could try mundane activities like walking, napping, and taking a shower. You’ve learned creative techniques for brainstorming and ideating, and you know that Elements can enhance your creativity in different ways.
The important thing is to not allow a creative block to defeat you.
“What separates artists from ex-artists is that those who challenge their fears, continue; those who don't, quit,” write David Bayles and Ted Orland in their book, Art & Fear: Observations on the Perils (and Rewards) of Artmaking.
Keep creating. That’s what makes you creative.
