Tom
If you need to be more creative, lead a more interesting life.
“How to be more creative. It’s not that hard right?”
Umm…it is.
Symptoms of slacking creativity include: writer’s block, twiddling thumbs, constantly checking the time, Facebook, reddit, eating, eating food you hate, doing anything to avoid beginning like cleaning the crevice between the counter and stove.
Encountering any problem—whether it be at work, school, or how to clean the crevice between the counter and the stove—we patiently wait for the “aha” moment, the moment of solution and gratification. “I figured it out!”
But why does it take seemingly forever to find this solution? How come the “aha” moment isn’t instant? Why did it take me four hours to think of wrapping a cloth around a stick to clean the counter crevice?!
Time to go science on your ass!
How come creativity never strikes when you need it most? You sit at your desk, grasping your hair and cursing, processing no ideas but only thoughts of wanting to produce ideas. In reality, anything works, even a ridiculous idea like an ad campaign based on Cavemen, or something.
Struggling to conjure original, creative thoughts boils down to basic physiology.
1. You’re a vegetable, literally, a potato that’s 100% unable to think divergently.
In Latvia, potato and rock the same. Such is life.
2. Stress. Stress is the biggest hindrance to creativity. When anxiety-stricken, your body acts in the same way that it reacts to being held at gunpoint. Your brain squirts a bit of cortisol into your neocortex (the part of the brain for higher-level thinking)—kind of like how men dumb down after squirt…and you get the point. Now, cortisol triggers a fight-or-flight response just like in the gunpoint example. From there, your focus shifts from to the problem rather than the solution. That means: Recycled thoughts and no answers!
That means the easiest way to increase creativity is to decrease stress…
…but that’s not always the easiest task.
At Vimbly, we believe that in order to be more creative, you need to lead a more interesting life. Do something, today!
Our brains require testing, a lot of it. Ya dig? Creative thoughts rarely sprouts while on the couch, suckling a Molson, and enduring hours of TLC. We need to smack it into your senses. Fists up. Here’s how.
New experiences in life: You need to see and do new things to alter perspectives. We learn via self-experimentation. Isn’t that the basis of science? Through new experiences, we’re able to veer away from recycled thoughts and processes. Creativity hatches from discovery. Follow this guide on how to be more creative.
Most Interesting Man in the World and probably most CREATIVE!
Exercise: Working out stimulates blood flow. The release of endorphins revitalizes the body, rejuvenating muscles and awakening the noggin.
Change the scenery: If you’re in need of a new solution or simply an idea, changing the scenery activates new thoughts. That girl with the toaster tattoo at the coffee shop, that fox-embroidered pillow, and that guy who spilled coffee connect previously unrelated thoughts. Also, our brains weren’t designed to sit in an office, staring at the same LED lights and Lighthouse photograph for eight to ten hours per day. It just doesn’t work.
Can you feel the creativity?!?
Write in candlelight: Switch off the computer, because the Internet is always a distraction (except for kitten photos), and channel your inner Thomas Jefferson. Natural lighting eases the eyes and relieves oodles of stress.
Be patient: If you wait, it’ll come. Just remember that in the back of your head.
Exactly.