Increase Creativity- What A Scary Old Haunted House Can Teach You About Why You Don't Create More

Do you like scary movies? Or do you quiver behind the sofa in fear at even the slightest glimpse of anything frightening?

How would you feel if you had to stay for a night at a run down old haunted house, right out in the middle of nowhere? In a torrential storm? With no electricity?

Whether scary thrills are something you relish or run a mile from, there’s plenty we can learn from them about our creativity, and why we don’t create more.

Imagine then you DO go to stay at that haunted house.

And it is right out deep in the middle of a forest, the last few hundred meters of the trail there only accessible on foot. The rain’s lashing down, lightning fills the sky, and that thunder sounds nearer with each mighty crack...

You get in the house and find there’s no power. And it’s cold. And there are strange noises around.

By now you’d probably be feeling pretty anxious, wouldn’t you?

Why?

Because of all the different factors that are adding up to making you feel scared.

Any of them on their own wouldn’t amount to much. But added together all at once, combined with your own vivid imagination spinning overtime, it’s not exactly a recipe for steady nerves and a calm head.

There are two main factors as work here. Associations and Expectations.

Here’s a little more about each and how they apply in your creative life:

Associations: In the haunted house scenario there are many elements that we associate with being in a scary situation. The run down old house, the storm, the isolated location, the power failure and so on.

So what do you associate with creating?

When you think of creating, what images and thoughts and memories come to mind? Are they positive, empowering images that are going to inspire you to create more?

If they are, that’s great, keep going as you are. If your associations with creating though are negative, debilitating and frustrating, then invest some time in looking at why this is. More importantly, think about how you can reprogram these into more positive associations.

Expectations: Back in the haunted house, with all those factors, we’d EXPECT to be scared. Our minds can be very powerful and play all kinds of tricks on us. It’s more than likely that you might even begin to imagine the floorboards upstairs creaking, or the lock on the front door being rattled, just because you’re expecting more scary stuff to happen.

What expectations do you have when you sit down to create?

Do you expect to create freely, wildly and abundantly? Or – maybe this is more likely – you expect to get stuck, to run out of ideas, to procrastinate, to get frustrated.

Again, look closely at your expectations around creativity. If they’re less than positive, then start to seriously consider ways you can begin to turn this around.

By working on these two important areas – your associations and expectations – of your creativity and creative work, you can quickly make strides towards being more creative.

(Pretty soon you’ll be able to sleep again without leaving the light on too!)

Want to learn more about how to increase YOUR creativity? It’s easy: just sign up to "Create Create!" - Creativity Coach Dan Goodwin's free twice monthly ezine - today, and get your FREE copy of the “Explode Your Creativity!” Action Workbook. Head on over now to www.CoachCreative.com