How To Stop Feeling Like You're Always Out Of Creative Ideas And Running On Empty

A major barrier to being freely creative and reaching your true creative potential is a lack of ideas. Many of us create far less than we could - or even give up creating altogether - because we feel it's such a struggle to keep coming up with good new ideas each time we go to create.

This is such a tragedy, as we all are capable of having more ideas than we'll ever need in our lifetimes, we just aren't CAPTURING them.

A life of creativity is a long journey. Let's say part of it is like a roadtrip across America. This is the kind of approach most of take when embarking on a journey like this:

You'll make sure you've got fuel in the car, enough to get you going, and you might pack a few food and drink supplies, then off you race into the adventure lying ahead. After a few dozen miles, you need more fuel, but you're keen to get as far as you can on what you've got. You don't want to lose momentum by stopping now, you've hardly begun.

So you carry on, into the night, and into the back of nowhere. A little while later, the fuel light starts glowing. An anxiety sets in. You're wondering how much further you can get, and more importantly where the next gas station is! Plus your stomach is starting to growl, and those sandwiches are long gone.

The excitement and adventure of the early part of your journey has been replaced by a tense, anxious foreboding feeling that you're running on empty - you and your car - and could break down at any moment.

Not exactly the best conditions for a fun trip.

Yet this is what most of us do in our creative lives, splutter along on one good idea, hoping and praying that the momentum will last until we finish at least this part of the creative project. Like the road trip, there's no enjoyment, no sense of freedom, just anxiety, panic and tension.

Here's the better alternative:

On your car bound adventure, you fill up on fuel and supplies before you go. As you're out on the road, you can enjoy the surroundings and the journey, knowing you've plenty left in the tank.

You stay aware of your fuel situation, and when your fuel gauge dips below half, you stop at the next gas station and top up again. While you're there you have a little stretch and refreshment yourself, and replenish your own food and water supplies.

Reenergised (in car and body) you head back out on the road, looking forward to the next part of your adventure.

In your creative life, keeping plenty of fuel in the tank equates to keeping yourself topped up with ideas. Having a good supply of ideas in a ideas journal gives you the freedom and confidence to create more freely, and to enjoy your creativity as much as possible.

When you see something, or think of something that sparks off a possible new idea, you jot it down right away in your ideas journal. You don't think "Oh I'll remember it later, I don't want to interrupt my flow", because you WON'T remember it, and before you know it, your flow is all dried up and you've got nowhere left to go, broken down and stranded in the middle of nowhere.

Start an ideas journal today, it only needs be a simple note book or sketch book. Keep it with you wherever you go and note down ideas as soon as they come to you. You'll find the more you use it, the easier even more ideas will come to you.

Then, rather than anxiously running on empty all the time, you can get on with enjoying your creative adventures topped and ready to run and run...

This is one of many ways to be more creative.

I invite you to take the next positive step to increase your creativity today by downloading your free copy of the powerful and practical "Explode Your Creativity!" Action Workbook at http://www.CoachCreative.com