Being creative is something that is open to everyone, and you don’t need to be an artist or a certain type of person in order to be able to make use of this part of human nature. But if you are keen to try and improve and work on your creativity, there are lots of ways that you should be able to do that, and it might actually be easier than you think as well. In fact, it’s something that you can build up no matter what position you are starting from.
In this post, we will take a look at some of the main things you might want to focus on in order to improve your creativity as fast as possible. All of the following is going to be really worthwhile, and you’ll find it helps you a lot. Let’s take a look.
Creativity Is A Skill
First of all, it might be that you need to take on board some new ideas about creativity, and get rid of some old, limiting ones. Creativity often gets treated like a personality trait: you either have it or you don’t. That belief is comforting because it excuses us from trying, but it’s also wrong. Creativity is a skill, and like any skill, it responds quickly to the right kind of pressure, practice, and environment. You don’t need years of training or some dramatic life change to become more creative. You can improve your creativity fast if you understand what actually blocks it and how to remove those obstacles.
What Is Creativity?
It’s important to have a sense of what creativity really is – and what it isn’t – if you are going to be able to work on your creativity yourself. And there are definitely some common misconceptions here. The first thing to understand is that creativity is not the act of having an idea; it’s the act of making connections between ideas. Your brain is already very good at this, but modern habits constantly interfere with the process. Constant stimulation, endless scrolling, and the pressure to be instantly impressive push the mind into reactive mode. In that state, the brain consumes instead of combines. If you want creativity quickly, you have to give your mind space to wander without feeding it new input every second.
Utilising Boredom
This is why boredom is such a powerful creative tool. When you stop filling every gap with entertainment or information, your brain starts doing something uncomfortable at first: it looks inward. That’s where creative associations form. Taking walks without headphones, sitting quietly for ten minutes, or even staring out a window can unlock ideas faster than another tutorial or inspirational video. The goal is not to relax, but to let your thoughts bump into each other without interruption.
When you start to do that, you soon find that you are coming up with many more ideas, and that this is happening quite naturally as well. That is a really good place to work from for your creativity.
Cool The Judgements
Another fast way to improve creativity is to lower the stakes of idea generation. Many people struggle creatively not because they lack ideas, but because they judge them too early. The moment an idea appears, it’s evaluated, criticized, and often killed before it has a chance to grow. Creativity accelerates when you separate idea generation from idea evaluation. When you give yourself permission to generate bad ideas, obvious ideas, or unfinished ideas, quantity rises quickly. And once quantity rises, quality follows.
Exercise Your Mind
One thing that helps a lot in general is just to make sure that you are exercising your mind as much as you can, in whatever way you are able to. It might be that you are going to play some games or puzzles like sudoku or checkers, or that you are going to spend more time reading and less time watching screens. Whatever it is, just make sure that you are exercising your mind as well as you can, and that is going to help you have a much more limber ability to think clearly and to come up with lots of new, exciting ideas. This is a secret that you should definitely take to heart.
Get Into Writing
Writing is one of the fastest tools for doing this, even if your creativity has nothing to do with writing. Putting thoughts into words forces vague impressions into visible form. Freewriting for ten minutes a day, without stopping or editing, can dramatically increase creative output. The key is momentum, not polish. When the mind knows it won’t be punished for imperfection, it takes more risks, and risk is where originality lives.
Make Use Of Constraints
Creativity also thrives on constraints, which sounds counterintuitive but works remarkably fast. When everything is possible, the brain freezes. When limits are imposed, it starts searching for clever ways around them. Limiting time, tools, format, or scope pushes the mind into problem-solving mode. If you only give yourself twenty minutes, or restrict yourself to one medium, or force yourself to work with an unfamiliar style, creativity often spikes. Constraints remove the burden of infinite choice and replace it with a clear challenge.
Stay Open To New Experiences
This is one that people forget about a lot of the time. Exposure to new inputs is another powerful accelerator, but it has to be intentional. Creativity doesn’t come from consuming more of the same things you already like. It comes from cross-pollination. Reading outside your field, listening to unfamiliar music, learning a basic concept from a totally different discipline can spark ideas quickly because your brain is forced to reconcile mismatched patterns. The trick is not to consume passively, but to ask simple questions as you do: How does this relate to what I already know? What would this look like in my world?
It’s asking questions like that, and keeping on moving, that makes all the difference here, so make sure you are doing that as best as you can.
