As creative people, ideas are our currency, our lifeblood. Creativity itself could be defined as "having and developing ideas".
If we have no ideas then we have nothing to build upon, nothing to cherish, nourish and encourage to grow.
Our minds at any one time are full of ideas of different types, sizes, ages and levels of attractiveness. So how can we ensure we encourage this development of ideas, this creativity?
One possible way is think of your creative mind as a large hotel or mansion.
In each of the rooms is a guest that represents a creative project or idea that you've started in the past. It's not important whether you finished the project, but that you had the original idea, invited it into your conscious mind and began to work on it. You committed some time and energy to it.
Then, each time you have a new idea and begin a new creative project based around that idea, it's like a new guest arriving at your hotel.
They check in at reception, are given the key to a comfortable spacious room and are then invited to take to their new quarters and get accustomed to the surroundings, to make themselves feel at home. Each guest - each new creative idea - enters as an equal, and is given the same size room as all the other guests.
Or are they?
What kind of welcome do your new guests receive in reality? Are they greeted with as much respect, enthusiasm and bonhomie as all those in the past were?
Is your Creativity Hotel all crisp clean sheets, stylish comfy furniture, 24-hour room service and a complimentary mini-bar?
Or is it more in the style of a grubby fold away bed in a rundown motel, with "cosy" dimensions - two steps in any direction and you're provided with a convenient wall to lean against - complete with damp stained wallpaper and what looks like weeks old pizza sauce...
And what about managing so many guests at any one time? Your Creativity Hotel is infinitely huge. Maybe at reception there's a map of the hotel which shows at a glance who's staying at each of the rooms?
But how do they interact with each other? Do they even mix at all?
Is each new guest invited to a lavish welcoming dinner, to socialise with all the other guests, form new connections and share experiences, returning to their room in the early hours of the next morning tired, yet all the richer and more developed because of it?
Or instead are the guests at your hotel told to stay in their rooms and keep themselves to themselves, to only come out for meals and fire drills. Oh and don't forget that 9pm lights out curfew!
Consider too that each new idea we have as creative people - each new quest at our Creativity Hotel - does not come from some unknown alien place, but from the same place that all our other ideas have come from. So surely it makes sense to re-introduce them as old friends, let them mix a little and have the opportunity to thrive in diverse and creative surroundings?
Next time you wonder about not having new ideas, ask yourself how you really treat the new ideas and inspiration that come to you? Do you record them eagerly then let them develop naturally? Or do you treat them with contempt or suspicion or worse still ignore them altogether?
Every great achievement in the history of humanity started with a single idea. So think for a moment about how some of those ideas may have been treated had they arrived in their initial state at your Creativity Hotel.
Of course you can take this idea of your Creativity Hotel as deeply or as light heartedly as you wish, the options are virtually limitless. Adapt it so it works best for you and have fun with it.
But to allow yourself to be as creative as possible, ensure you do all you can to make YOUR Creativity Hotel a bustling, stimulating and happy place where new guests can't help but come flocking, and soon flourish in the company of others of a similar mind...
© Copyright 2006 Dan Goodwin.
