Creativity is magic. To an external observer, it is often even more than that: it is a miracle. When you see an act of creativity, you have a feeling something is created out of thin air. It is often so magical it seems like witchcraft.
But as any magician knows, what seems to be an unexplained act for a bystander, is the result of hard work, preparation, and discipline, especially if they want it to be more than a one-time random success.
If you would like to make the upcoming year magical, or should I say magically creative, here are a few things that can help you achieve that.
Practice and Have Fun
First thing first: if you want this year to be your most creative year ever don’t stop practicing. Just like magicians practice their skills, make sure to challenge your creativity on a daily basis. No matter what your starting point is, you will improve your creative muscles if you make them work.
But don’t think that doing hard creative work means fun is out of the question. On the contrary: without having fun your practice will not be effective. Make sure you chose a fun way to develop your creativity. Playfulness is essential.
The best way to practice your creativity on a daily basis and to have loads of fun while doing so is using seempli. Our Creativity Gym includes thousands of creative challenges which are 100% open-ended and 100% Fun. As a bonus, you can do most of them without any overhead by taking advantage of your “dead-time.”
Find the Creative Twist in Everything
While planned daily practice in the gym is essential, the real magic happens when you apply your creativity to real-life scenarios. Don’t wait for someone to tell you “this problem requires a creative solution,” or “we must think out of the box.” Creativity can be applied to everything and every aspect of your life.
One such surprising area which you can spice up with a touch of creativity is your relationships. Take any one of your relationships and think how it can benefit from a touch of creativity. If it is a challenging relationship, consider how you might be able to create a breakthrough in a surprising non-trivial way. If the relationship is “on track,” think how you could take it to a whole new level.
Creativity can help you turn any challenge into an opportunity and color any doll task or issue with surprising and vivid colors. In a sense, this is the next level of your creative practice. By applying creativity to everything, you gain the benefit of practically upgrading everything. Even if you experience some failures or pitfalls along the way, the mere attempt to do something different is bound to make any task more exciting.
Imagine 365 Days a Year
The connection between creativity and imagination might sound trivial. But while we can intuitively understand it, most of us are rarely taking it to the operative level. We want to be more creative, but we don’t do much to develop our imagination.
The equation is very simple: the more you imagine – the more creative you get. That’s it. So, if you want to do some creativity magic, start with activating your imagination. Every day!
Whether it is by daydreaming or by doing an active exercise, imagination is muscle you just must activate. And the more you use it, the easier it gets.
Read, Watch, Listen
The more you get exposed to different things, the more raw material you have. And the more you get exposed to creative work (from any domain), the more inspired you get.
To make the creative magic happen, make it a habit of reading fiction, watching movies, and listen to music frequently. It doesn’t matter if you are aiming to be creative in a completely different domain. When you explore creative work from various fields your mind expands not just with additional raw material but also with new connections and associations.
Reading fiction is probably the most effective of these activities simply because your mind is driven to imagine. When I read a good story, I often imagine the characters, the scenery, or even a potential soundtrack. In a sense, I am turning the book into a movie (or at least some selected scenes of it) in my mind. I am not aspiring for a cinematic career, but it does make my imagination work, and that is an excellent practice.
Keep Track
Last but not least, if you are doing even some of the things above, or other things altogether, it is worthwhile to keep track of what you observe, find, feel, and experience.
Maintaining a journal in general, and specifically, a creative journal can help you gain some meaningful insights about what works for you best (and what works less), how you evolve and improve over time. In some cases, revisiting your journal from time to time will even help you find inspiration or material for your next project or challenge.
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It’s a beginning of a new year, and it’s the perfect time for some personal resolutions. But then again, every day is.
If you want to be more creative – if you want to be able to do some magic – you have to do something about it. Magic is not created out of thin air. It is just made to look that way.
This road can (and should) be enjoyable. You need to practice daily, bring creativity to every task you do, never stop imagining, be exposed to creative work, and keep track of your progress and achievements – and have loads of fun while doing so.
Are you ready to do some magic?
Happy New Year!