How To Stay Creative

For creative people, the thing that inhibits us the most, is ourselves. This can come in a lot of forms; lack of ideas, no motivation, feeling uninspired, prioritising other things.

Here are some top tips to rekindle your creativity, and get yourself creating again.

Fill your life with other creative things. Art, books, films, videos, speeches, documentaries; all these things can inspire you and give you ideas. Visit art galleries and museums, immerse yourself in a place full of creativity and you’ll find it to be infectious.

Organise your life. Tidying your house, your room, even just your desk will help massively. Even if just in a metaphorical way, it’ll feel like your brain is being tidied and you’ll instantly feel better for it, leaving more room for those creative ideas to flow.

Making a moodboard is a quick and easy way to help you kickstart your creativity again. Print off quotes, images, places and people and create a collage of them all, and place it somewhere you look at often. Even better, make a few, and have one where you work, as your phone background, hanging on the wall of your kitchen. Seeing these things can help ideas flow, such as settings and characters, or simply inspire you to open your notebook or laptop and put (metaphorical or literally) pen to paper.

There are so many writing exercises that can fuel your creativity and bring back passion for a creative project.

Carry a notebook around with you, in your bag, and when you get an idea, write it down; capture it before it has a chance to escape. When you come back to your notebook, it’ll be full of ideas you’ve forgotten about.

Similarly, a dream diary could really help refine your creative edge. If you’re an avid dreamer, when you wake up, write down your dreams – record them, characters, settings, narratives and all. You’re being creative without realising it – channeling your inner artist that has been working all through the night! Don’t let these ideas go to waste; write them down.

Free writing can be a great way to rekindle your creative spark. Basically, put your pen to paper and just… write. It doesn’t matter what, why, how, when, or where. Another way to do this is to free write, without letting your pen leave the paper. As you’re writing more quickly, the ideas are flowing quicker too, and before you know it, the creativity is let loose.

It’s easy to be overwhelmed by the daunting prospect of refinding your lost creativity. If you turn off distractions; TV, games consoles, music… you’ll find these creative tasks far more engaging. But remember, it’s important to take breaks, so you don’t run your creativity dry. If you’re trying to be creative, take breaks, and you’ll find yourself energised for each new creative endeavour you undertake.

If you’re struggling to be creative, maybe it’s down to a lack of enthusiasm for what you’re creating. If it’s not essential, leave it aside for a creative activity you engage with. If it is, take your time to do something else creative (we’ve mentioned one or two ways to do this above) to refind that creativity and enthusiasm for your creation.

You don’t have to continue the same creative task, either: draw, paint, sing, make music, take photos, write a different medium or style, create origami swans. The point is, do something creative you know you enjoy, and this will straight away get you back in the creative mood.

This ties well into the most important point of all; have fun! Creating is one of the most rewarding things you can do; putting something into the world that wouldn’t exist without you. Have fun, experiment, try new things and share your work with others. If you’re having fun when you create, there’s nothing to hold you back.