How to Use Your Intuition To Be More Creative
Realize creativity and intuition are similar.
Intuition and Creativity are:
- Experiential. They are active not passive. We experience them just like we do real life. They allow us to be hands-on, and they guide us from concept to reality, our reality.
- Sensory. We use our senses to tap into our intuition. The more senses we involve when we create–drawing, writing, designing, or singing–the better our end product. If you’re stuck, stimulate your sense of smell with your favorite scent. Or stimulate your memory with photographs. Or listen to a song.
- Dependent on time and space. Ever notice when you demand yourself to finish a project, you balk? That’s called resistance. We resist what we don’t yet understand, or what we don’t yet have the answer for. If we ease up on resisting and allow our intuition in, which takes time and space, we arrive at a solution much faster. So get your mind off your project, go someplace else, and allow.
- Signals. They alert you to notice detail and connection. Intuition allows us to see the connections between things. Creativity takes those connections and makes sense of them. The key is to trust the signals and follow them, then act, create. We can do so through collaboration or mind mapping or even day dreaming.
- Instant problem solvers. Have you ever read an article or report you wrote and thought: “Wow! That’s really good. I don’t even remember writing it”? Even the most gifted artists notice some connections once they’re finished and see their work. Often, answers and solutions seem like they come from somewhere other than you. That’s because you’ve made a new connection or tapped into a part of your consciousness that isn’t being used daily. (And of course, some of us believe it might be a divine source of consciousness).
Believe in your ideas. Creativity isn’t just for artists.
You do have intuition. Because we all (yes, that’s you, too!) have senses. You and I have the ability to make connections between things that may seem dissimilar. We may call it “going on instinct” or “leading with our heart,” or “responding from our gut.” Or we may have that “aha” moment Oprah made famous. And most of us can use our imagination, our “mind’s eye” to see things in a way we haven’t before.
Intuition can help us all access creative ideas and solutions.
Though intuition can be elusive, it’s not invisible. It’s there waiting to solve your dilemma. And we can all get into intuitive flow if we notice detail and connection.
It’s not magic, but it can seem like it is. When we invite intuition in, it allows us to step outside of a box (a paradigm) to come up with new ideas. Our consciousness moves from tight and constricted to expanded and open. Using our imagination, or our intuition, gets us into flow so we can create these ideas at our best.
You can prepare for intuition.
You have to notice it, acknowledge it, and invite it in. Here are 5 ways to do just that.
- Take a lesson from a child. I wrote two books during my toddlers’ naps. They stimulated my intuition and catalyzed me to remember what it was like to have a child’s view of the world, all curiosity and wonder. You can access this child’s mind, too, just by having fun.
- Take time to allow flow in. Give yourself permission to relax. Again, creativity on demand is not best. You may have to meet that deadline, but a walk may help you get the project in early. We seldom can access intuition and imagination if we’re beating up on ourselves, punishing our bodies by sitting, or forcing something to happen.
- Stop judging yourself. Your intuition is impartial. So get those not-good-enough gremlins off your shoulder!
- Separate the creative act from the analytical mind. If there’s one piece of advice you walk away with from this article it’s this: Your brain does not create by itself. It creates through a neurological sequence of electrical firings, which do not work in the same way when you are backtracking and editing every other sentence. Or tearing up a canvas every time you put a color down. Or pressing delete on a speech before you get to the end of the first page. Create first. Revise after.
- Stay open and observant. Some of the best work I’ve ever done professionally has been the result of noticing detail and connecting new ideas. I wrote an annual report called, “We’re all in this together,” several years before Obama began his presidential campaign with that slogan. I came up with that line because I was observing what people around me were going through. They felt disconnected and disempowered after 9/11. Yet the truth was that when we worked together, we got through it.
Calm curiosity is key.
P.S. Photo is mine (Kathryn Ramsperger) It is one of the first books ever printed in a museum in Byblos, Lebanon, the setting of my first novel.