How to Have More Creative Ideas - Are You Making This Classic Mistake?

One of the biggest issues creative artists like us have that stops us being more creative, is believing we never have any good ideas.

The problem is not that we don't have the ideas in the first place, but we simply forget how many ideas we do have.

Let's imagine this scenario, and follow a day in the life of a painter and writer called Jessica, and see how her belief that she never has any good ideas fits in with the reality of her creative life.

So, this morning Jessica wakes from an amazing dream about flying serpents, castles with impenetrable walls and her great Aunt stood at the top of the castle tower sprinkling glitter into the wind. "Hmmm", thinks Jessica, "I could maybe use some of these strange images for a new painting, or maybe a story. I'll come back to them when I have some time."

What she's already forgotten is that half an hour earlier she woke momentarily from an equally vivid dream involving her three favourite dolls from childhood being lost in the biggest snowfall for decades.

As Jessica gets up and prepares for the morning ahead, she daydreams about possible new painting techniques. The way the soap bubbles as she washes makes her wonder how she could make similar patterns as she paints, or maybe how she could use different materials to apply paints to create new textures, instead of using brushes all the time. "I'll experiment a little when I have more time," she muses.

Jessica then heads to meet a friend for coffee and breakfast at the local caf�. It had been raining earlier, and on the way she notices the reflections in puddles, and how they make the roads appear tiled with mirrors of different shapes and sizes. "I wonder how I could use mirrors and reflections in my paintings", she wonders.

Entering the caf�, the delicious aroma of fresh coffee fills Jessica's nostrils and she thinks back to the times growing up when her mother would always have fresh coffee every morning as Jessica and her brother came down to breakfast.

"Why are some scents so nostalgic", ponders Jessica. "Maybe I could use nostalgia as theme for a series of paintings, recreate scenes from my childhood, from anyone's childhood. Maybe I could try a painting completely in shades of sepia, so it looks almost like an old photo? I'll try that one day when I get round to it."

Jessica's friend Molly has already arrived and they greet each other warmly. ""So Jess," says Molly, "how's the painting going? Tell me all about your latest ideas!"

"I wish I could," replies Jessica, "but I never seem to have any ideas these days. I sit at my canvas desperately hoping some bolt of inspiration will come to me, but nothing does. I'm so frustrated and disillusioned with it all."

At this point I'm sure you're thinking what I'm thinking. Jessica, rewind the tape and see what we saw!

What about the serpents, your Aunt, the glitter, the castle? What about the dolls lost in the snow? What about the soap bubbles and using different materials to apply paint? What about the scent of coffee, the nostalgia, the sepia coloured paintings? All of these possible starting ideas for new creative projects occurred in less than a couple of hours!

Jessica made the classic mistake that so many of us make. We have ideas all the time, but we don't capture them, because we think we'll remember them.

Then when we don't remember, it feels like we never even had the ideas in the first place!

You can put an end to this frustration very simply.

Just get yourself a small notebook, call it your Ideas Journal, and keep it with you at all times. Then whenever you have an idea, stop, take 30 seconds to write it down, and continue with what you were doing.

In just a few days you'll realise how many ideas have been flowing to you all along, you've just not been recording them, so they've evaporated as quickly as they came.

The more ideas you capture, the more will come to you. Go, get started right away, and realise that you are a veritable creative ideas factory!

Autor: Dan Goodwin Dan Goodwin
Level: Platinum
Creativity Coach Dan Goodwin helps people who are frustrated they're not making use of their creative talents and abilities. A highly creative person himself, in ... ...

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Added: February 5, 2009
Source: http://ezinearticles.com/