Wow… we’re at the last letter in CREATIVE HABITS. S=Stretch yourself.
It’s been a while since I last wrote here, and part of it was because I overstretched myself and haven’t been doing a very good job at juggling all the balls I had in the air. But that’s what happens when you stretch yourself and go for creating your own future.
You see, I’m also a business coach. I love helping businesses develop strategies and plans for sustainable growth. As a coach I help them develop and use creative and critical thinking skills in their business. Creativity is at the core of every successful business and sometimes we forget that. We become so focused on the outcome or product we forget we also need to focus on the process.
Enough of my soapbox… if you’re interested to find out more, particularly around creativity in business visit my website Simple Synergy. I do a lot of writing there as well!
Now to Stretching your creative habits and my thoughts on this…
Without challenges in life people become stagnant and dull. Everyone needs a fresh challenge every now and then, just to keep life interesting. The same is true with our creative writing. Sometimes working on a project that is outside your comfort zone will help stretch your mind.
photo credit: brdavids
Every now and then, I get a writing assignment from a client or myself that makes me think, “Oh boy, I’m in for it now, I’m not sure I can do this”. However, when I give myself a chance to actually try it, I often find I can do it. Stretching is important because it keeps your art from growing stale.
There are many ways you can stretch and develop your creative habits for the future. Accepting assignments that challenge you as a writer is only one way to increase your creative capacity. You can stretch creatively by writing something that is purely for your fun, rather than for immediate sale. You may try writing in a new format, such as poems, short stories, or even stretch yourself to actually write that great novel you’ve always dreamed about writing.
Part of being willing to develop your craft as a writer is being able to accept the challenges of dealing with constructive criticism, learning from it, and changing the way you write to gain better audience coverage, and more attention from readers. Stretching yourself with your writing will help to continue to develop and polish your writing skills.
When athletes prepare for a race, one of the first things they do is stretch their muscles, particularly those being used to win the race. Writers should do the same thing. Participating in some simple creative mind exercises can increase your creativity and can help add interest to your writing. Here are some exercises to stretch your creative habits:
- Picture Match. Cut out a number of pictures from magazines or newspapers. Put the pictures into a big envelope and shake the envelope. Pull out two pictures at random and give yourself five minutes to write about the pictures.
- Dictionary Find. Randomly open a page in the dictionary and read until you find a word you didn’t already know the meaning of. Read the meaning and then create three completely different sentences using the word. Not only does this help to engage the mind and is as effective for getting the mind ready for work as stretching our physical muscles, but it also increases your knowledge of vocabulary and word usage.
- Title Swap. Randomly choose three books from your bookshelf. Using the words of the three titles, combine the titles into one new title. Alternatively to really stretch your mind, come up with three completely new titles for possible books, using only those words in the original titles.
These kinds of five minute creative activities help to stretch your mind and get your brain ready for the creative work of writing.
Stretch your creative writing habits by accepting new challenges and warm up the brain by quick, non-essential, creative games that encourage the mind to start tapping into the creative side. Stretching will help you to develop the trade of writing and will help to engage with the reader.
What do you do to stretch yourself creatively?
How do you push those creative boundaries even further?
I’d love to hear your thoughts.
