One last time - Day 8

Hello my Friends!

I really can't believe how fast one week can pass by, now I am writing the final post for this series. Hope over the last seven days I managed to teach you something or at least showed you some interesting point of views and ways of thinking. Today I just want to close this week and say goodbye.

But maybe not for to long. While I was working on this blog I realized how interested I really am in all these topics and especially in the thoughts of other people. I want to know more about what people think on this and if they already tried something similar and how it worked. That's why I need you! The greatest thing would be if this blog goes viral, even if just a few more people read it and maybe comment on it I would already be very happy. I think creativity lies in everyone, for some it's just easier to find and to use it. But isn't it unfair to all the people who really want to do creative things and just don't know how? Exactly, so I see this as a chance to open their eyes for the wonderful world of creativity and creativity enhancement. Together with your help we could do this! ;-)

My second wish in the end of this project is, to all of the people who have read this, that they won't forget the different approaches and that they actually use them. I just hope I helped some people out there.

I'm not sure yet what is going to happen with this blog in the future, but who knows? Maybe me creativity gets enhanced again someday and I will start over.

Until then I won't say goodbye because I don't want you to forget what you've learned, I'm just waiting until you will read my thoughts again ;-)

found at weheartit

Yours,

AL

I am Unique - Day 7

Nearly a last Hello!

Honestly, I just can't believe how fast 7 days can pass by. Today I am writing my second last post regarding this creativity enhancement series. Since you and me already learned a lot in those 7 days I would like to focus todays post on something very special. I really want to tell you that you are unique.

Yes, you read that right. I know, many of you might think right now that they don't really have any special talents, which could make them unique. But today I am here to inspire you, because only if you believe in uniqueness you can create something unique.

So just lay back for now and watch the inspirations I picked for you. Uniqueness does not always has to be something very special or great, you just have to find something that differentiates you from others and - voila you are unique.

Already feel inspired? Tell me about your uniqueness in the comments!

found at weheartit

Yours,

AL


Tomorrows topic: "One last time"

Talking about Failure - Day 6

Heyho out there!

I hope all of you enjoyed to be allowed to be curious since yesterdays post. And obviously you are very curious since you are back at todays post to get to know even more ;-)

Today I'd like to talk about failure and what I learned about it. In my class our teacher showed us a very interesting video to inspire us about this topic. This video took about 15 minutes and gave us a lot of impressions. I know that many people are just sitting in front of their computer and reading some blog entries at Sunday evening - I don't want to overstrain your excitement, that's why I'm just showing you a piece of the video, the one with the most essential message. If you want to see the full-version click here.

Rule #6

We live in a world full of rules. And sometimes it gets pretty hard to remember everything. Let me tell you, it is not that important to know every legal regulation or the proper etiquette, those things can be researched very easily but what really matter, especially regarding creativity enhancement, is rule number 6. As mentioned above (in the video) the only thing you need to know is that you should never take yourself to damn seriously.

But what do I mean with that? It's quite simple. Remember when I told you that you always need to be at least 90% sure that your idea will work? Well, sometimes there's no real chance to get that percentage. Sometimes you need to take a risk, and either you win or you loose.

If you win everything is fine and you can feel free to celebrate yourself. If you loose, it can be tough, but don't get disappointed, because rule number 6 says that you should not take yourself so damn seriously. And this is not the best part, because now you also get the chance to celebrate your mistakes. Believe me, this will contribute to your future so much more than celebrating yourself ;-)

Mistaken

That's what you are when you believe that mistakes and/or failure are bad. Especially in a creative environment, mistakes are the very best way to learn something!

To make this a little more understandable I've got another challenge for you:

Take a sheet of paper and a pen. Now think about all the mistakes you've made in your life. They don't have to be major mistakes, although those are usually the ones which come to your mind first. Write all those mistakes down in a column. When you're finished take another pen and think about what you've learned from all those mistakes. Write your learning next to the concerned mistake.

After you've done that, have a look at your paper. You can see that mistakes happen and this is something which you can't really do anything about it. But as you see, every mistake makes you learn something, every mistake makes you wiser and every mistake changes you.

found at lovethispic

What I want to tell you with all of this - don't be afraid of failure and mistakes. Take those as opportunities to create something new, and after 6 days you know how to do this, right? ;-)

Yours,

AL

Tomorrows topic: I am Unique

Why so curious? - Day 5

Welcome Back!

Curiosity. Being curious. Something everyone out there knows really good. In fact I never met a person who was not curious about something and while some people talk very openminded about it, other people think about it as something really sneaky.
The Cambridge Dictionary defines curiosity as "an eager wish to know or learn about something" and with that they are perfectly right. But what is the connection here with creativity enhancement? Isn't curiosity just a bad habit of everyone? Isn't it just about poking ones nose into other peoples business?
Keep on reading and I will tell you more ;-)

found at weheartit

After the parts explaining how to gather a lot of ideas and also how to create new ones it is time to talk about what it needs to get a good idea. And guess what - it's curiosity!

You may think that curiosity is more about other peoples lives than your own ideas, because you know them already, why should you be curious about it? The answer is easy: When coming up with ideas, you don't really know what exactly you're looking for. You need to be curious about your ideas to keep on thinking about and improving it. Without curiosity you'd stop thinking about it before you could find what you are really looking for! So always keep in mind that:

1. we don't know where ideas come from

2. but you certainly need curiosity to obtain them.

So stop thinking that curiosity can only be used to create awareness for marketing concepts, to blame people or to just satisfy your own curious mind. A natural sense of curiosity can be very helpful in your creative thinking process.

As you can maybe see, my advice is to stop stalking strangers, stop listening to conversations you're not a part of (yes, I know it's hard to resist!) and stop wasting your curiosity on other people. Keep it to yourself and come up with the greatest ideas one has ever seen.

found at weheartit

In case that you still need a little inspiration on this whole curiosity thing, I have the perfect answer for you: Disney. 

When I was looking for some inspirations for this post I, as a passionate fan of all the Disney movies, discovered that curiosity is actually a topic covered in most of those movies. And since there is not better thing to get inspired from than music, I put together this little song selection for you:

I hope you enjoy being curious without need to be ashamed of it and see you tomorrow!

Yours,

AL

Tomorrows topic: "Talking about Failure"

What about all those Boxes? - Day 4

Hello creative thinkers!

Another day has come and so does another post, which is strongly connected to yesterdays post, so if you haven't read it yet you should absolutely do so ;-)

Yesterday evening I left you thinking about our first approach on creating ideas, but now it's time to talk about the second one, and it is all about boxes and how to get out of them.

found at weheartit

If I had to name a phrase which I heard most during my studies on creativity it would be "think outside of the box". I was told by so many teachers about it and every time it had a different meaning to them and they wanted me to figure out something different. But when it comes to creativity enhancement the concept suddenly made sense to me - and this is basically what I am trying to explain to you today ;-)

To me, all the time it sounded so easy to think outside of the box. I always had this picture in my mind of a usual carton box, and suddenly it opens up to show me a whole new world of thinking. Maybe some of you remember Spongebob Squarepants? There is one specific episode which maybe contributed a lot to my picturing about this whole "box-thing". In case you don't know it, watch it here - starting at 1:45.

Maybe you can see now, why it took me quite a long time to realize why this box is something bad when talking about creativity. But, sometimes, it certainly is. Yesterday I was talking about walls you need to climb to exploit your whole creative potential. Today, you should consider this walls as a box, and to create something new and to gather new ideas, you have to think outside of it. Because sometimes even the silliest ideas can be great, you just can't see it, since there is this box between you and your thinking.

So to create great ideas and to overcome the box, you need to think in different directions. Ever heard about operational blindness? Another thing to overcome here. To be creative in your thinking process you need to use every possibility to solve your struggle, that means you can't just think straight ahead in the direction you're used to, but you also need to think left, right, backwards, up and down. You need to gather as many ideas as you can, if you really put them into reality is another question, 90%-chance remember?

To overcome the box a little easier, or at least to give you an idea on it, I found this wonderful article for you, showing you 11 ways to think outside of the box.

found at weheartit

Have fun reading it and see you tomorrow!

Yours,

AL

Tomorrows topic: "Why so curious?"

Building Destruction - Day 3

Happy Thursday Guys!

And welcome back to your daily dose of creativity and how to enhance it.

Yesterday I was talking about gathering ideas and how to create something new - I hope all of you did the challenge? - but how can you create an (really good) idea?

That's the question I'd like to answer for you in todays post!

In my class I've heard about two different approaches in this "idea-creation-process". Both of them are really helpful but different. The first approach is going to help you when you have the feeling that something's got your thinking stuck while the other one assists you when you try to climb the walls, which surround your thoughts and prevent you from connecting new ones.

Creative Destruction

One of the first things I've learned about enhancing creativity was that sometimes you have to destroy something to make things better. But that doesn't meant that whenever you fell stuck in your thinking-process you should start to randomly destroy things around you! It means that you have to find something that blocks you and also the reason why. This "something" most of the times is something very emotional and hard to find. The next thing you have to think about before starting the destruction is your objective. What do you want to achieve by destroying your thing? Do you want to get some relief, get over something, or just proof to yourself that you can change things?

After that the only thing left to consider is the way of destruction. Usually it is a very aggressive, brutal one, especially when a lot of emotions and feelings are involved.

found at weheartit

I know this may sound a little strange when you first think about it, but believe me, destruction is not always something bad.In this case it can help you to free your mind and to open yourself to new ideas and feelings.By destroying things you can kind of unblock your creativity.

If you still don't believe me, just have another thought about this quote:

"Would you destroy something perfect in order to make it beautiful?"

(Gerard Way)

And if you need some more thoughts on this, to really form an opinion, have a look at this. 

Since this has already been a whole lot to think about I will explain the second approach to you tomorrow in my next post.

Have a nice evening and keep on thinking about this:

found at weheartit

Yours,

AL


Tomorrows topic: "What about all those Boxes?"

A List of Ideas and Creating Something New - Day 2

Hello again!

Another day has come and so does another post, full of creativity of course ;-)
Since you are reading this right now, it seems like I've got your attention on this topic - you won't regret it, I promise!

I'd like to split today's post into two parts:

1. My consideration process - how did I choose to do a blog? And why is this important?
2. Challenge - Create something new in 10 minutes!


My consideration process
As I already told you yesterday, if you want to solve a struggle you need a very very good idea. An idea which makes you at least 90% sure that what you have in mind will actually work. To get something that secure, you will need to do a lot of brainstorming and gather lots of ideas. In this part of the process it is not very important which kind of ideas you come up with, because a "bad idea" can certainly lead to a very good one, sometimes you just have to adapt some things to increase the probability that the idea will work.

So I did this. I sat down and tried to think about some (realistic) things which I could do to fulfill my assignment, you can have a look at this process here:

So as you can see I managed to gather 11 ideas. In my next step I actually thought about my teacher (hello there :-p) and tried to figure out what he will consider as a good idea and what I am actually capable of doing. This is something you should do as well when deciding on which idea you'll further work on. You should know if:

• you have enough time to do it
• you have the financial means to do it
• this kind of idea is realisable in the given circumstances
• you need help
• there are certain things you need to get first before starting to work on your idea.

If you've been considering all those things and you are sure that there is at least a 90%-chance that you'll be successful you should absolutely go for it.

And why did I choose to do this? I can give you the simple answer: of this idea I was the most sure of being able to manage it on time, show what I've learned and show my creative thinking (90% remember?).

Challenge

To conclude today's post I came up with a little challenge, similar to a challenge which we were given in the class. I gave myself 10 minutes (sometimes creativity also has to work under time pressure) to come up with a beautiful poem. In the video below you can see how I got along with this challenge ;-)

To make the work readable ;-)

So as you guys can see, it is very easy to create something new and often it also takes nearly no time. I hope you are not afraid to face this challenge, I'd really like to read in the comments how you got along with this and of course your beautiful poems.

See you tomorrow!

Yours,

AL

Tomorrows topic: "Building destruction"