Peter Koijen and Ligia Ramos from in2motivation, an Amsterdam-based personal and professional development company, give us advice on how to be creative.

These days everyone wants to be creative, unique and different. But most people only end up repeating of all the things that they did up until now.

The reason for this is very simple: the brain is not creative. And the majority of people just think that they can be unique and different, without really thinking about 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 to nine things at the same time. Yet, it is also important to realise that we can see and understand a series of six to twelve images, each presented in between 13 to 80 milliseconds. And this is what our brain does all day; look for concepts.

The brain is always trying to make sense of what it is seeing. If you connect this with the space “for attention” available in the brain, it is very easy to see that we don’t have that much space free. Our brain is like an out-dated PC with a low processing capacity.

So, for the majority of the time, people are repeating behaviours, thoughts, habits and thinking structures from the past. In repetition, the need to understand and know is preserved. However, this is not being creative, even if the same behaviour is being applied in a different situation; it is just repetition. Yet, stupidly enough, people usually expect a different end result.

“I don’t know why, but it seems like I always go for the wrong person!”

“I don’t know why, but I’m always doing the same thing!”

“When I saw it, I just did it again.”

“I have already tried everything, but nothing changes.”

“I’m like this.“

To be creative is simple, but you really need to take the time for it!

Start taking the time to do something that you have never done before

Doing something different doesn’t have to be a huge 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 have 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 to people who are different from 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 likes to be creative if it is not being forced to do so. Give it time and new ideas will come to you. Do nothing to do something new!

Start meditating

Different forms of meditation will enable you to see meditation in different ways. 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.

Co-authors Peter Koijen and Ligia Ramos are life coaches and motivational speakers at in2motivation, offering personal and professional training courses to optimise individual and group motivation and performance.