The Problem Solver: 10 Strategies For Creativity By Linda Bruce

People are always asking me where I get my creative ideas. I'm a firm believer in living a creative life. For all of us, being creative is much more enjoyable and inspiring than living a monotonous routine. A creative life increases understanding and appreciation of new ideas, of other people, and the world in general. Creativity unlocks the mind and makes the spirit soar. In a word, creativity is what makes you feel alive.

Here are some insights from a favorite book of mine on the subject of creativity. Its called, "Aha" 10 Ways to Free Your Creative Spirit and Find Your Great Ideas" by Jordan Ayan.

• Connect with People You are like a ball in the pinball machine of life, continuously bounding from one encounter to another. Each person you come across has the potential to send you in a new direction, which can spark your next great idea or lead you to new insights about your work.
• Design an Enriching Environment Your environment affects your mood and your entire outlook on life. It is a strong stimulus to new feelings, ideas, and insights into the people you meet and the events you experience. It also fuels the artistic or entrepreneurial spirit, providing the inspiration that prompts you to see a new vision for a balloon centerpiece, hear a new song, or invent a new product.
• Get out of Your Box Through Travel serves up a continually changing kaleidoscope of colors, textures, smells and tastes that heighten all your senses and compel you to think and react in new ways.
• Be Sparked by Play and Humor "People do not quit playing because they grow old. They grow old because they quit playing". ---Oliver Wendell Holmes Play eases you into a state of mind that contains many of the elements you need to be creative--curiosity, imagination, experimentation, fantasy, speculation or what if, role playing, and wonder.
• Expand Your Mind Through Reading Reading triggers your imagination. A good book invites you to visualize and entire world with its events, scenes, and characters. These images stick in your mind and will eventually become the basis of metaphors you write, figures you draw, and even the decisions you make.
• Take up the Arts The real power of the arts is that they speak directly and deeply into your creative soul. Art and music can be uplifting, thought provoking, amusing, annoying, heartwrenching, challenging, depressing, comforting, or surprising. The feeling that art or music produce can lead to creative breakthroughs in any area of your life.
• Plug into Technology At this time, the on-line universe is becoming the most exciting and creative frontier in computing. Whether you are seeking the solution to your business problems, scoping out a location for your next novel, or researching wine making or floral design, you will find inspiration and answers by hooking into the on-line universe.
• Power Think Your Challenges Brainstorming takes advantage of synergy, the fact that the total energy of a group is greater than the sum of its individual participants. the group dynamic that occurs causes everyone's energy to skyrocket.
• Release Your Alterconscious Unlike the strategies of transformative thinking or forced connections that you invoke consciously, you cannot force your alterconscious to come up with a new idea. Instead, you must train yourself to pay attention to the pearls of wisdom your mind produces on its own and perfect a method for capturing this information.
• Connect with Your Creative Soul Connecting with your inner self requires that you be open to the idea that within each of us are the seeds of great ideas!

The ultimate joy of creativity is moving your ideas from the dream stage to the steam stage. Make them happen, if only just for you!