Ideas are the currency of creatives. The more you have, the more valuable you become to your organization. When ideas run dry, you start to feel out of place—like a creative nomad wandering without anything in the bank. If you want to stay rich in ideas, you need habits that keep your creativity flowing. Below are four practical ways to stay inspired and consistently generate new ideas.
1. Bad Ideas Aren’t Bad.
Your first idea is rarely your best. In fact, your first idea almost never becomes the final idea. Ideas give birth to more ideas, and you usually have to wade through a few bad ones to get to the good ones. That’s why you must learn to be completely okay with bad ideas. When you stop judging yourself too early, you open the floodgates. You give your brain permission to explore instead of criticize. Creativity thrives when you allow yourself to dream freely—without evaluating every thought on arrival.
“Ideas always birth ideas—and you have to be okay with a bad idea to get to the good ideas.”
2. Always Be Aggregating.
No one cooks dinner by driving to the store every night for one chicken breast and a single pepper. You stock up so you’re ready when hunger comes. The same is true in creativity. You don’t wait until you need an idea—you build a pantry full of them. Creativity becomes far easier when you collect ideas constantly. Save posts, images, quotes, colors, designs, articles—anything that sparks something in you. Use tools like Evernote, Google Drive, or Pinterest to store and organize what you gather.
One option is a Mod Notebook: write by hand, then send it in to be digitized and added to your digital system. Whatever tool you choose, make sure you’re collecting ideas regularly so you always have something to pull from later.
“Constantly collecting ideas sets you up to be creative whenever you need it.”
3. Hang Out With Other Creatives.
Dave Ramsey once said, “If you want to become a millionaire, learn from millionaires—not from someone who wants to be one.” The same applies to creativity. If you want to become more creative, spend more time with people who already are. Their inspiration will trigger your inspiration. Their ideas will spark your ideas. Creativity is contagious.
Reach out to that creative person you admire and grab lunch. Talk about ideas. Share things you’re working on. Collaborate. Surrounding yourself with other creatives multiplies your own creativity.
“If you want to become more creative, hang out with those you believe are more creative.”
4. Start with a Blank Page.
A blank page can be intimidating. It’s the creative equivalent of walking into the gym on day one. It feels uncomfortable, even painful at first. But the only way to build creative “muscles” is to work them. Start with nothing and try to create something—anything. A sketch. A new set design. A script idea. A pattern. A layout. A doodle that turns into something else.
Do it weekly. Not for a deadline, not for a project—just for you. Going to the creative gym prepares you for the creative marathon later.
“Every week, take out a blank page and try to create something from nothing.”
These four habits won’t make you instantly brilliant, but they will make you consistently creative. There’s no creativity lottery—you don’t wake up one morning with sudden genius. You build it slowly, steadily, through intentional practice. When you’re comfortable with bad ideas, you collect ideas when you don’t need them, you surround yourself with creative people, and you train your mind to create from nothing—you unlock something powerful. You become the kind of person who always has ideas ready when it matters most.
