Flexing Your Creative Muscle

It’s a common belief that creativity is either something you’re born with or you aren’t. “I’m just not creative like you” and being a ‘creative type’ are things we hear time and again in our industry – but this creative flair isn’t just down to luck of the draw.

In fact, everyone can be wildly creative if they put in the hours to nurture and develop the right side of the brain, which is where creativity, imagination and artistic ideas thrive.

Creativity is like a muscle that must be challenged, stretched and occasionally pushed past its comfort zone in order to reach its full potential. Just like you would use a gym to develop strength in your arms, legs or core, it’s important to give your brain a regular workout to grow your creative muscle.

Brain training and lateral thinking exercises are a great way to develop this further. At Energy, we are constantly looking for new ways to change our perceptions, improve our creative thinking and come up with unusual ideas for clients to help them engage with their audiences and stand out from the crowd. In fact, we have a creativity manifesto which ensures we continue to do our lateral thinking homework even when we’re not working on a client’s account.

Here are a few ideas to develop your creative thinking:

Creativity can thrive when you disrupt habitual thought patterns and change your perspective. We are always looking for opportunities to soak up new experiences, but in the short term something as simple as taking a different route to work can often jolt our brains into a new pattern of thinking to help spur on creativity.

A 2013 study by Getty Images showed that about 70 percent of creatives said they need more ‘creative time’ and more than 60 percent reported having great ideas but neither the time nor support to execute them. When we’re all wrapped up in the daily grind it can be impossible to think about anything past what’s directly in front of us, so give yourself space to simply think. Being bored is a great way to encourage what could be the most genius idea, so lock away your phone, turn off emails and gaze into the abyss.

We’ve all been in a situation where we’ve been trying to find a solution for so long that we can’t see the wood for the trees. Looking at something for too long can really stifle lateral thinking. There is a great TED Talk by author Tim Harford who talks about ‘slow motion multi-tasking’. This is when someone has several projects on the go at once and moves back and forth between them depending on their mood. It was adopted by some of the world’s most influential inventors, from Einstein to Darwin, and is proven to grow creative thought.

In the short term, something as simple as giving your team Lego to play with during brainstorms can help stop everyone focussing too directly on the problem and coming up with solutions that may not have been considered before.