Today, I want to talk to you about unconventional creativity. Specifically, I want to share 7 techniques on how you can tap into your Muse, to reveal a deep level of creative brilliance you didn’t even know was there.

As a Creative, I rely on my right–brain engine and left–brain function to put thought and strategy together, so I can, on cue, come up with enlightened ways to sell ideas. I depend on this apparatus especially when I’m marketing something in highly saturated markets, like coaching programs or diamond engagement rings.

To thrive in the Creative economy, you’ve got to be, well, creative! Even if you don’t proclaim to be a visionary, today I’m going to share a few secrets from my stash that anyone can benefit from. These methods have always helped me stand singularly in my own niche and take me into the competition–free blue ocean.

In order to access your Muse, you need to:

#1: Unlearn everything you’ve ever learned

Rational thinking and intellectual knowledge give you the facts, the parameters, the historical data, the expected outcomes and the boundaries. But rational thinking contains walls, like indoor racquetball. Every ball you hit bounces off of a defined perimeter and returns squarely back at you, almost like unproductive resistance to new thought and new direction.

To reach sky–high creativity, forget everything you’ve ever learned. Rather than looking at the facts, consider the connections. Try to connect the dots and contemplate how things that shouldn’t fit actually do fit together.

By connecting dots that don’t rationally nor traditionally link up, you’ve set up new conceptual and income pathways for you to be wildly different, imaginative and stand in your own class.

It’s no surprise that higher creativity occurs when you use unlined paper vs. lined paper. That’s because when we have open space, we give ourselves the room to go beyond the perimeter. Lines can subconsciously impose practicality and linearity on your creative thinking.

#2: Get messy

Decluttering your home and office space may give you tranquility from outer and inner chaos. But creativity needs to be messy, because creativity is a non–linear experimental process.

We keep our apartment fairly tidy, but when it comes to creating something, I allow myself to make a mondo mess. That’s been my creative process, since the time I studied at Parsons School of Design. It is not uncommon for me to have itty bitty bits of cut up paper all over the floor, papers scattered all over my desk and art materials strewn everywhere.

When that hurricane of creative birth is done, I (and my BF!) clean it all up. I also allow myself to make a mess in the kitchen too, where I always have fun.

But, I will say this: your creative space needs to be tidy before you start and tidy after you finish. Creativity must be functional. Begin from a place of organization and bring everything back into order when you’re done.

#3: Don’t think about it

The best ideas happen when you’re not thinking about it or trying to make it happen. If you need to write a blog post, come up with your optin, create a program or design something, allow your best a–ha’s to rise to the surface on its own time. Don’t sit there and slave over it. Don’t try to pick and squeeze at that creative pimple before it’s ready to come out.

Birthing is a natural process that occurs according to its own schedule. It’s true in life as it is in creativity.

Ernest Hemingway said, “There is nothing to writing. All you do is sit down at a typewriter and bleed.” What that means is, creativity is effortless if you do it only when it’s ready to come out.

#4: Listen to classical music

This one is my favorite technique whether I’m writing or designing. Classical music stimulates creativity. It also contains no distractions, like vocals or lyrics to clutter up your mind or disrupt your thought flow. When I’m creating, my favorite composers to listen to are Mozart and Chopin.

#5: Ditch the technology, at first

To access your Muse uninterrupted, get off of the computer and go for paper and pen(cil).

Computers are essential tools for executing your ideas, but old–fashioned paper and pen provide the freedom for you to spill your creative output. Fussing with software, typing, mousing and distractions like social media add to mental stress and are major hindrances to capturing creative thought.

#6: Don’t throw any idea away

Almost always, ideas don’t come in final, beautifully–packaged, fully cooked, ready–to–eat forms. Ideas come in intuitive blips and partial flashes of insight.

So if you get part of an idea, or one that doesn’t have practical application yet, or one that seems meh, don’t be so quick to toss them out. Let that idea continue to incubate with your Muse, and let her toss some more variations or additional flashes of a–ha’s to you.

Ideas need to be shaped. Works of art are 100% work. Being brilliant is inconvenient!

#7: Take a chance and act

Do you want to know what really creates stuckness? Stuckness happens when you get creative idea after creative idea after creative idea, and you do absolutely nothing with them.

Your Muse can keep hitting tennis balls at you, but if you never volley them back, you’re just going to drown in tennis balls and get stuck underneath heaps of them. If you feel creatively stuck, consider that you’re not actually stuck. Consider that you’re choosing not to engage with your Muse, who is always sending doors and tennis balls your way.

You don’t have to volley every ball, as in, take action on every creative idea that you download. But at least, tinker with them. Take one footstep with them and see if you’re inspired to go further. If you don’t, stop there and pick another ball to volley.

Do any of these creative methods resonate with you? If so, pick one or a few and integrate them into your daily creative practice. I hope these have helped you!

Hi, I’m Ana Coeur

I teach entrepreneurs how to create their business straight from their soul. I offer a complete Intuitive Business Suite to help you create, design, write and sell all from your intuition. Here’s the services you can take advantage of to empower your business: Intuitive Web & Brand Design, Intuitive Copywriting and Intuitive Selling. If there’s anything I can help you with, I would love to hear about it! You may email me at anaintuitivepicture.com

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