“Relax!” the masseur gently, but firmly, whispers while lodging an elbow somewhere I didn’t know existed.
I get a remedial massage every month, and every time I drive my WWE-wannabe masseur crazy by being too tense.
And of course, when someone tells you to “relax” that’s the last thing you do.
You tense up, overthink, and spiral. The same goes for thinking creatively.
If I walked up to you, mid-workday and whispered, “just think creatively,” you’d freeze. Suddenly, your brain’s playing elevator music and reruns of old Simpsons episodes.
Or maybe that’s just me?
From my experience, creativity can’t be delivered on command. It needs space, time, curiosity, and a little mischief.
While we stagger drunkenly into a dystopian future where AI may end up doing all of our work and thinking, the one superpower we all still own is our creativity. Forget “to err is human”, I say “to be human is to create”.
But it’s all very well setting aside time and space to find that creative spark, but how do you nurture creativity? Here are a few tips I’ve cultivated from reading extensively on the subject and running my own creative workshops:
Flip the cliché
Write down the idea and lean into every cliché you can think of, then twist it. This is where I will put the idea into AI and ask it to come up with the most overused and cliché term to describe the idea. From there, I add a word, remove a word, flip it upside down. If the opposite feels surprisingly true, you’ve struck gold. It’s why my favourite saying is death to the cliché!
Be the annoying toddler
Keep asking why or what until you’ve got nothing left to say. Curiosity is creativity’s best mate.
Eavesdrop for insights
When you’re in cafés, parks, train stations… listen in. It’s the cheapest market research you’ll ever do.
Love your audience
Empathy is rocket fuel. What do they want? What frustrates them? What are they feeling? You can’t sell to someone if you don’t like them or understand them.
Have hobbies
Interests outside work will free and feed your creativity. I find those who are uber-obsessive about a hobby are the most creative. It breeds researching skills, reading and seeking of other people’s opinions and it expands your world outside the one you live in every day.
Talk to someone outside your bubble
A conversational secondment with someone in a totally different industry can provide creative nuggets.
Word vomit the bad ideas first
Set a timer and write down every terrible idea. Gems hide in the rubble.
Role play
Another great tip is to get members of your team to swap roles. Get the graphic designer to think of a tagline, get the copywriter to sit down and work out how they would mock the design up. Or even better – and this is where great ideas are formed – get someone not from a traditional creative industry to join. I have seen some of the best ideas and questions come from engineers and accountants – they are natural problem solvers and bring a new lens to a creative challenge. And it’s often led by the first question they usually ask – why are we doing this?
Kill the whiteboard
Brainstorm on paper. The delete button or whiteboard cleaner is your enemy – keep the messy ideas so you can build on them later.
Elevate the analogy
Flex your brain muscles by setting up an analogy. Similar to the game where you map out the five degrees of separation from Kevin Bacon, set yourself a wild analogy that creatively explains the similarities or links to the problem or challenge you are trying to creatively conquer.
Find the gap
What are your competitors hopeless at? Lean into that. Or go micro, find the niche of the niche.
Cultivate downtime
Museums, libraries, nurseries… immerse yourself in other people’s creativity. The inspiration will seep through your pores.
Dress the part
Wear something bold. Confidence breeds creativity. I reject the idea we all need to wear black t-shirts and jeans to be creative.
Spot the human truths
Watch comedians (live if you can). They make a living revealing what everyone’s thinking but no one says – they are the ultimate sentiment test of society. Search “topic + stand-up comedy” for tension points.
Observe rituals
Understand them deeply, they’re emotional journeys and ripe for creative leverage. What rituals can you hijack or expand on?
Read the comments section
Want a sentiment check? Dive in. Warning: proceed with caution.
SCAMPER your way to brilliance with Claire Bridges’ framework
- Substitute: Swap materials, methods, or concepts.
- Combine: Merge ideas for something new.
- Adapt: Borrow from other domains.
- Modify: Change size, tone, colour – anything.
- Put to another use: Repurpose for a new role.
- Eliminate: Drop elements to simplify
- Reverse: Flip structure or order for fresh perspective.
And lastly, if nothing else is working for you, think WWTD (What Would Taylor Do)?
Taylor Swift, love or hate her music, is THE queen of reinvention and owning the narrative, and in my opinion the master of marketing and creativity.
Creativity is a curated conversation that needs to be fostered.
So next time someone whispers “think creatively,” ignore the elevator music and pull out this list to help the process get started.
Because creativity, like relaxation, works best when you just let it happen.
