Be More Creative - 7 Ways You're Choking Your Creativity - And What To Do Instead

By Dan Goodwin

Often, it doesn't matter how much you're doing to try to be more creative, if you're constantly sabotaging and choking our creativity on a number of different fronts. Here are 7 of the most common ways you may be choking YOUR creativity, and what you can do instead:

1. You don't create regularly.

When you create erratically, you never give yourself the chance to get into the flow and the habit of creating. By creating for a minimum amount at the same time everyday, you give your creativity permission to be creative and send the clear message that creating is something that is a priority and of great importance to you. Your creativity responds and flows like never before.

2. You don't capture your ideas.

When it feels like you never have any good ideas, what's actually happening is you never record your ideas and forget them as quickly as they came. Use an Ideas Journal - simply a small pocket notebook to jot your ideas down when they appear - and soon you'll have more ideas than you can capture!

3. You don't acknowledge you creative strengths.

We're each unique in our creative strengths, so rather than focusing on what you feel you lack, recognise and celebrate your creative strengths. What would a good friend of yours say if they were asked what your biggest creative strengths were? Write them all down and make the most of them.

4. You let your inner critic have the last word.

We all have negative voices in our heads telling us we're not good enough, or we have no talent. You have the choice whether to be dictated to by these kind of thoughts or whether to tune them out as background noise and carry on creating the best you can create anyway.

5. You intimidate yourself with too many materials.

A classic cause of getting stuck creatively is to simply give yourself too many options then get completely overwhelmed. Set a few simple boundaries in the form, size, style, theme and so on of what you're going to create. When your creativity has a few edges to push against, it can really be at its resourceful best.

6. You've lost touch with why you create.

When creating has been a struggle for some time, and you only have negative associations with creating, it's easy to get demoralised. Spend time getting back to why you create, and remembering what it is that creating gives you that nothing else can.

7. You forget you always have a choice.

In every part of creating, you have a choice, though it's easy to forget. You can choose to make time each day to create, you can choose to acknowledge creativity as the important element in your life it is, and you can choose to give yourself permission to be as creative as you can possible be. Choose creativity!

Which of these resonate most for you? What steps can you take today to loosen that stranglehold and let your creativity breathe freely again?

Take the next step to increase your creativity today by getting your copy of Creativity Coach Dan Goodwin's powerful and practical "Explode Your Creativity!" Action Workbook. It's FREE when you sign up to the FREE twice monthly ezine "Create Create!" at www.CoachCreative.com

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Dan_Goodwin

Getting Ahead In Your Job Or Career With Your Creative Ideas

By Martin Mak

Do you have a great idea to can raise the bottom line of the company you work for? Such an idea could be to raise productivity, lower the cost of production or a clever idea to raise staff morale.
In the past, you may have a frustrating experience when your idea was rejected or ignored. The reason could be that nobody told you "the secret". When a great idea pops into our head, the next step is to sell your idea so that others will buy into it. Here are seven important steps that you can take in that process;

1. Don't get too excited about the idea. Think it through a couple of times. It may have flaws that others can see, although they may not be apparent to you. Take time to work through the kinks.
At the same time, others may not see your idea's financial rewards that you find obvious.

2. Don't get frustrated by rejection. Most great ideas face some form of rejection. You can deflect negative criticism by asking for constructive input, for instance, getting feedback to improve an idea or to overcome a hurdle.

3. Ask correct questions. Aim to understand what your managers mean by creativity and innovation. What is their "box" when they use the term "out-of-the-box"? How do they view the development of the products, processes and technology supporting them? This step is crucial in discovering "the secret".

4. Collect pertinent information. Are there technological or market trends that can help you back up your ideas? Are you aware of developments of local and foreign players in the industry? Can you provide what your customers are looking for?

5. Create many ideas. Its time to stretch your imagination to create more than two options. Use your memory and past experiences to guide you on how you can improve a situation. These are the best guides for great ideas. When you generate many options, you will get a better understanding of the different perspective and possibilities you have.

6. Choose your ideas carefully. What should your perfect solution look like? Start building a series of criteria or "must haves" to guide you to a great solution. You may wish to make a spreadsheet or chart to help you tick off the essential features of a great idea. Then give each feature some points, the more important the feature, the more points you should award.

7. Make ideas into solutions. Identify and remedy potential flaws or turn them into leverage points. The weakness of an idea can become its strength if seen from another perspective. For example, 3M's Post-It pads use a weak glue and it was a result of an unsuccessful attempt to create a strong glue for paper.

Six Great Guidelines To Creating A Great Idea

1. Start small. Think of a modest feasible improvement. You can later add on to it as you get more competent and create great benefits for your company.

2. Your knowledge bank is your resource. Keep a look out for your competitor's products and global trends to help you gather fresh insights.

3. Persevere and persuade. This is the toughest part of the process. You need to be a great sales person to sell your idea. That means communicating the calculated risks, the testing period and monitoring the milestone of progress. Remember never to sell an idea purely on excitement.

4. Do not succumb to the fear within. All novel ideas have an element of risk. We all have an inner fear that tell us that it won't work or we're opening ourselves to ridicule. As Einstein once said, "If the idea is not absurd at first, there is no hope for it". The process of making sense or connecting an idea to reality is a separate one.

5. All great ideas have their own time. Some of them may flourish at a later date.

6. Learn from your mistakes. Don't be afraid of making mistakes. There are valuable lessons to be learn from them. You can apply these lessons in future innovative initiatives.

All great ideas take time to nurture. Your memory is the storehouse of your creative genius that you can use to create great ideas. Remember to value other people's perspective. With that, you will enable the company to see the possibilities of new business models and markets or even to re-define the industry.

Martin Mak has developed a new program to help you improve your memory and enhance your learning experience. Find out more with his popular and free ecourse. =>http://www.mightymemory.com/memoryarticle.html

The Creative Lounge - A Business Directory

By Battusai Slasher

The creative lounge is a business directory that is dedicated to provide a good exposure to art and creativity. It has a vision to create a solid business background for the client that provides a guarantee for the good future. The pillars of development are excellence in visual communication and promotion of design innovation. Just from their start as a consultancy, the company has grown rapidly as an exiting, creative and diverse advertising and web agency that is a dedicated resource to creative work.

The selling and promotion of the creative work is an important part of a business and has a positive role in promoting it. It is a business directory that brings together the people of creative society where they can discuss about their business and shares information about the latest innovation. It is a place for the art societies, organizations and institutes to meet together and discuss about their problems and forms a common attitude. Every business must have a positive and exiting image in the mind of the customer if it wants to be a booming sector. The creativeness play an important role in getting the business run on a fast pace.It is easy to get registered on the creative lounge. The user has to choose particular categories of his business. The other necessary information for registration is Name, Email and Title. Two different intro and extro text along with the images can be posted on the site. The categories available are institute, company, artist, designers, portfolio, artist service, resources, designer studios, galleries and software.

In the portfolio category an artist, organization or a company can share the information about their achievements, vision or goal of life. The intro and extro text is enough to provide necessary information to the user.

In company or an organization category, the company or organization provides the specific information about their products and services along with the details of contact. It provides the email or other method of contact to invite feedback from the users. The directory is totally dedicated to the artists and creative world and provide a good exposure all over the world. The online presence is always beneficial to spread your business at a fast pace. It is a type of networking that helps to get the opinion about the product in the market. Any organization or agency that is associated with some creative work can get registered on the directory. All type of creative work including the photography, creative designing and software are welcomed on the site. The site provide a good networking for the innovative people.

It is easy to search a particular business organization or institute on the directory. The index is arranged alphabetically and can be searched by providing a particular keyword. The search can be ordered according to the requirement. By default it sorts the results according to the latest posting in a category. The visitor can view the popular results out of a category by sorting it on the basis of popularity.

http://www.creativelounge.org

Strategies for Success: 9 Ways To Be More Creative

By Lisette Howlett

We all know how essential creativity and creative thinking is to business success. Being creative is not always coming up with new or niche ideas it is also about positioning old ideas in a new way, or finding a solution to a problem that makes you faster, better, cheaper.

This mlh global hr consulting strategies for success article proposes 9 ways you can be more creative

1. Avoid self imposed barriers. These can be imposed on ourselves consciously or unconsciously. They are particularly difficult to recognise but relatively easy to correct. Try asking yourself – what would be an ‘out of the box’ solution; what would xx do? Try brainstorming different ideas – follow the brainstorming rules – nothing is too outrageous to go on the list. Talk to others, particularly people who you think are creative, and get insights into how they think though problems.

2. Try thinking of more than one answer to everything. When you select your preferred solution check this against personal norms – was it predictable that you would choose this solution?

3. Avoid Conformity. Try thinking – ‘what would be totally outrageous to my collaborators, my customers, my suppliers, my network, my friends?’ If you do come up with a radical or different idea think carefully about how you introduce it – using good process, stakeholder identification and different influencing techniques mean that you can ease in a solution that might otherwise be rejected.

4. Challenge the obvious. It can be tempting to find and use the most obvious answer as there is a lot of effort required to challenging the obvious solution.

5. Try to consciously think broadly and long term – even if you use analytical thinking to do this. Practice with mind maps and other visual tools that encourage non linear thinking. Try the paradigm question: “What is impossible to do right now but if you could do it would fundamentally change your business etc”?

6. Avoid making up your mind too quickly which can eliminate possible solutions or areas of thought at too early. If your inclination is to say ‘this won’t work’ try instead to say ‘this will work if we do xx’ or ‘what would be the benefit if it did work’.

7. Experiment with people you trust and are comfortable with. Tell some collaborators that you are consciously trying to be more creative and so will be making more ‘out there’ suggestions. If you prepare your environment it feels safer and you are more likely to take risks.

8. Avoid cynicism and negativity. This will prevent people wanting or trying to put new ideas forward. Not only will this curb your own creative thinking but that of everyone around you. If you find you have tendencies in this way – try disciplining yourself to always think of one good thing about an idea BEFORE voicing any critique. Humour can also often unwittingly appear
cynical or negative, or intimidate others – think about how you use yours; and from time to time adjust it according to the needs of the people you are with.

9. Try using phrases such as:

• That sounds interesting, tell me more …
• That sounds interesting, let’s try it …
• I have never thought of it like that, thanks …
• It sounds off the wall, but I wonder how we can make it work …

Lisette Howlett, Managing Consultant/Director mlh global hr consulting, has a unique range and breadth in HR and a track record of achievement spanning 15 years with global Human
Resources in blue chip companies and 5 years in local government and the public sector. This includes extensive global HR project and content leadership and internal/external HR consulting covering UK, U.S., Switzerland, Europe, and Asia. She writes and presents on HR and recruitment matters with particular emphasis on recruitment, recruitment effectiveness, integrated talent management, the people and organisation side of M&A and business transformation, the role of HR, strategic HR and global HR.

Additionally Lisette is founder of HireScores.com a website which provides independent information and real life feedback on all aspects of recruitment – serving the needs of candidates, recruiters and hiring companies.