These days everyone wants to be creative, unique and different. But most people only produce a (very) bad repetition of all the things that they did until now.
The reason for this is very simple: the brain is not creative. And the majority of people just think they can be unique and different, without really thinking how to do this.
The brain, or at least the logical ability it possesses, has a very limited attention span. We can only pay attention to between seven and nine things at the same time. Yet it is also important to realize that we can see and understand a series of six to twelve images, each presented in between 13 and 80 milliseconds. And this is what our brain does all day; looking for concepts. The brain is always trying to understand what it is seeing. If you connect this with the space available “for attention” in the brain, it is very easy to see that we don’t have lots of space free.
Our brain is like an outdated PC with low processing capacity.
So for the majority of the time, what people are doing is repeating behaviors, thoughts, habits and thinking structures from the past. And the necessity of human beings to understand and to know is also preserved. But this is not being creative, even if the same behavior is being applied in a different situation; it is just repeating. Yet, stupidly enough, people normally expect a different end result.
“I don’t know why but it seems like I always go for the wrong guy!” “I don’t know why but I’m always doing the same thing!” “When I saw it I just did it again.”
“I already tried everything but nothing changes.” “I’m like this.“
To be creative is simple but you need to really take the time for it!
Start taking time to do something that you never did before
Doing something different can be a small thing. For example, write with your left hand if you are right-handed, watch a movie and write about it, or go out and about with a camera and look for places and things that you never paid attention to before, like yellow signs!
Start looking for stories in everything you do
This is really simple! You just need to reply to the question: what is this a metaphor for? The coffee in the morning is cold. This is a metaphor for….. and so on!
Start talking with people who are different to you
If you like dancing, look for people that like bikes. If you like being alone, look for people that like to go to parties all the time.
Start doing nothing
The brain is happy to be creative if it is not being forced to do so. Give time for new ideas to come. Do nothing to do something new.
Start meditating
Different ways of meditation will give you different ways of seeing meditation.
Enjoy it!
Being creative is not a trend, but a necessity for you to be the best version of yourself! It means being someone you were not before, doing something you did not do before, and having something you did not have before.
Peter Koijen and Ligia Ramos, in2motivation
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