Does Your Creative Brain Need a Boost?

The creative team at AICREATIVV is no stranger to mental blocks, so here are two ways to blast through that obstacle!

Brunei creative agency AICREATIVV share two ways to overcome creative blocks and improve creativity.

We tend to think of creativity as an innate trait - something that some people are born with, and others are not. In actuality, creativity is more of a skill than it is a talent, and all skills can be developed and improved with practice and the right mindset.

At its core, creativity can be understood as the ability to come up with new ideas or solutions, which means that it is valuable in any field - the arts, the sciences, and everything in between! So, whether you are an individual who wants to foster the skill or a creative design agency like AICREATIVV that depends on it, here we will share two ways to keep the creative juices flowing!

Disrupt Your Patterns

Throughout our day, we have routines that help us to make it through the day smoothly. And while it is natural to become comfortable with these daily patterns, relying on them too much can lead to functional fixedness - the phenomenon of being stuck in a particular way of thinking that it becomes difficult to come up with creative and innovative solutions to problems.

One of the ways to effectively break free from functional fixedness is by disrupting your common patterns of thought and behavior. There are many ways to do this: it could be as complex as taking a different route to work or back home, or as simple as switching the order in which you make your morning bowl of cereal. By occasionally disrupting your routines and patterns, you are forcing your brain to abandon neural pathways that it has become accustomed to, and it therefore begins to create new connections between cells. These new connections are where fresh, innovative ideas can spark into existence and come to the surface.

Let Your Mind Wander

Have you ever been told off for daydreaming or spacing out? Turns out, mind-wandering may actually facilitate the creative process. Studies have found that the brain reacts the same way during an improvised jazz performance and a session of mind-wandering: activity in the prefrontal cortex decreases. The prefrontal cortex, which is the area of your brain behind your forehead, is responsible for monitoring your actions and controlling your impulses. Therefore, reduced activity in this area means that you’re more likely to let loose, take risks, and think outside the box.

So, the next time you find yourself in a mental rut or a creative block, take a break with good intent. Find an activity that is minimally demanding but engages your brain to mind-wander, which are typically repetitive activities such as taking walks, gardening, or doodling. When you come back to your creative work, your mind will be primed for innovative thinking.

Breaking the Creative Block

For the designers and copywriters in the AICREATIVV team, we are all too familiar with the feeling of your mind being stuck and unyielding. As counterintuitive as it is, forcing creative ideas to appear is the least effective method to break free from that mental rut! Think of it this way - you are forcing your brain to perform when all it needs is a break.

By disrupting your common routines and patterns of behavior, and letting your mind wander during your breaks, you can boost your creativity and get back to work with a fresh and revitalized mind! So, the next time you seem to be lacking in inspiration, try these tips and see how they work for you. You might be surprised at what you can accomplish!