7 Awesome Ways to Find Your Creative Inspiration

This is a guest post by Dustin Riechmann from the Engaged Marriage.

Are you a creative person?

Do you feel like you could create something useful, but you just don’t have the time, the interest or the motivation?

Each of us has unique talents to offer, even the power to create something truly extraordinary.

The problem is that it is so easy to get trapped in our daily routines. As they say, the worst enemy of greatness is “good enough.”

I know first-hand how easy it is to be apathetic about doing something special with your God-given talents. The rigors and routines of everyday life have a way of settling us into a groove. Same day, same story. I have great news! It doesn’t have to be this way.

7 Tips to Help You Discover Your Creative Inspiration

You can use the seven tips below to snap out of your funk and discover your own creative inspiration.

1. Do an Everyday Activity Slightly Differently

We all fall into the routines of daily life: your commute, the same old workout, getting ready for work each morning. To call these mundane activities would be a gross understatement.

In his book No More Mondays, author Dan Miller describes a discovery a college professor made one day when getting dressed. While buttoning up his shirt the same way he did everyday, he discovered that his wife had sewed up some of the buttonholes.

As his fingers fumbled to follow the familiar path, his mind was flooded with inspiration. With this in mind, he experimented with his students and discovered that changes in our habitual behaviors have a profound effect on our brain.

As it turns out, when we “sew up our buttonholes” by changing (even slightly) a daily routine, our brain is forced to form new neurological pathways.

The result is a new sense of creativity and a new perspective on old ideas.

So, change things up in your life. Once per week, take a different route to work. Read a book you would usually avoid. Talk to a child or an elderly person and really listen to their perspective.

2. Sit For Ideas

I recently wrote a post on Engaged Marriage that described how I use my time bowhunting to open my mind and deepen my thoughts.

Many of the greatest thinkers, inventors and entrepreneurs in modern history scheduled time to simply “sit for ideas.”

Andrew Carnegie would spend hours sitting alone in a room, undistracted, to solve problems.

Thomas Edison would go down to the water’s edge each morning, throw out his line – with no bait – and then watch the bobber for an hour until his thinking was ready for the day.

What could be your version of sitting for ideas? Long walks, solo rounds of golf, knitting, fishing?

There are many ways to get away from all of life’s constant distractions and allow your mind to solve problems, create, and simply replenish itself.

3. Talk it Out

Many of us spend most of our workdays talking and interacting with others, sometimes to the point that we’d rather just spend our time at home alone.

This is especially true for guys as we just don’t express ourselves verbally to the same extent as our female acquaintances.

However, spending some quality time just talking without reservation to your spouse, friend or even your child can really help you sort out your thoughts.

While it may seem like internalizing our thoughts would breed creativity, sometimes we just need to talk it out.

4. Go on Vacation

Sometimes, we legitimately need a jump-start to get our creative engines running. This was the case for me just a few months back.

I had settled into familiar and comfortable routines in pretty much every aspect of my life. In the back of mind, I knew I wanted to do something different, but I felt like I never had the time or motivation to pin down my thoughts.

Fortunately, my wife and I decided to take a trip to Cancun with friends. The kids were left with their grandparents, the days were stress-free, the drinks and food were free-flowing, and I spent a lot of time reading cool books (including No More Mondays) and just floating in the ocean.

In my new state of total relaxation, my creativity finally started to flow! A hundred ideas came to mind, and I jotted down as many as I could on the hotel stationery.

My brain felt alive, and I was ready to tackle something completely new and inspired. For me, the result was a new web site aimed at helping others take their normal marriages to the next level.

Engaged Marriage was born as a result of our vacation away from our everyday routines.

What kind of vacation excites you and conjures up visions of time spent relaxing, imagining and creating? Invest the time and money to get you there. The payoff in your life could be huge.

5. Share a Spiritual Experience with a Loved One

My wife and I were recently invited to attend a weekend marriage retreat. It was a very positive and surprisingly spiritual experience for us. And it also left us both bursting with creative energy and expressing ideas that we had left buried in the backs of our minds for many years.

Other spiritual experiences may not be so positive but can be just as stimulating to our thoughts.

I recently experienced the death of a close family member. There are few things like long nights spent in a hospital in close quarters with your family to open your mind and clarify your priorities and aspirations.

6. Relive a Dorm Night

I firmly believe that the majority of my political, religious and “life” beliefs were formed during late-night discussions in the student dormitory my Freshman year of college.

The free exchange of opinions and ideas (along with plenty of mind “lubricating” drinks) led to many deep conversations. The feeling of creative power in the room was almost palpable some nights.

While we cannot return to our college dorm (without alerting the campus police, at least), we can recreate the spirit of open dialogue.

Maybe your “grown-up” version could be formed around a poker night, a book club or a camp-out. Let the (drinks and) conversations flow and enjoy your very own “mastermind” group discussion.

7. Feed your Mind Every Day

I am a big believer in the practice of lifetime learning. As Charles Jones said, “You will be the same person in five years as you are today except for the books you read and the people you meet.”

So, keep your creative spirit alive by nourishing your mind every day. Read a good book, listen to a podcast, associate with diverse people, try new things. And keep reading fantastic blogs like My Super-Charged Life!

Use These Awesome Tips to Find Your Creative Inspiration!

So, there you have it. If you take one or more of the ideas above and put it into practice, I am confident that you will unleash the creative spirit that is stuck in the back of your mind each day.

You will not only have great new ideas, but you will become more aware of your ideas and develop the means to put them into practice.

One final note: be sure to document your ideas as they come to mind! As you put these strategies into practice, you can expect a flood of new inspiration and new thoughts.

You should keep a notebook or voice recorder on-hand at all times to capture your brainstorms. I have found that some “prime times” for idea generation are immediately upon waking from sleep, on long drives and in the shower…especially when you “sew up your buttonholes” and expand your mind during these everyday activities.

Dustin Riechmann created the Engaged Marriage site with the mission of helping to make normal marriages awesome. Using the creative inspiration found through time spent with his wife, he seeks to provide the information and resources to educate, entertain and inspire married and engaged couples to take their relationships to the next level and live their lives together to the fullest. Dustin is thrilled to spend each day with his wife and two young children.

Photo by Caveman 92223