31 Days: The Power of Ideas

Ideas can be powerful things. They can take you to new places, allow you to soar, or limit and bind you. One of the best things about writing this blog is the daily focus it brings to playing with ideas.

Actually, that is the secret to stretching your creativity: 

being playful with ideas...

The "discipline" or habit of setting aside some time for allowing the mind to generate a flow of ideas is valuable and enjoyable.

Here's what I like to do, and you may enjoy this too:

Some folks might call this brainstorming, but my practice feels more relaxed and playful than that. 

I like to think of it as imagineering. 

{Thank you Walt Disney}

I like to use my voice memo to capture my flow of ideas. 

{unless I'm in the shower, where flow of water seems to induce a flow of ideas!} 

Some of the twists and turns in imagineering are astounding and fun. If you don't "imagineer" regularly and need some help getting started, you can use some of these techniques to generate a flow:

Riff on a theme, 

Turn the idea or theme upside down or backwards, 

Ask yourself: "what would the opposite of X look like?"

"what does the shape/color of X remind me of?"

"how could I take X one step further?"

"what have I never seen X do before?" 

Asking silly or "impossible" questions allows you to think in new ways and generate new idea flows. It also helps induce a relaxed right-brain focus, rather than a pressured left-brained list-maker type of mentality.

There are several things freeing and expansive about this process:

You learn that ideas are abundant and plentiful. In fact, the more you do this, the faster they seem to come.

You realize that you don't need to 'wait' for an idea to come to you... just throw the first one out there to get started.

You learn that your first ideas may be pallid compared with the amazing idea just a quarter-turn away, so you are willing to stay engaged and play for awhile. 

You learn that ideas are tools, not dogma.

You learn that the true value lies in a flexible mind, not in a particular idea. 

The flexible mind is the goose that is able to lay those golden eggs.

...

I am grateful for a flexible mind.

I am thankful for the opportunity to exercise my mind and expand my creativity.

I value the playful quality that allows the mind and heart to be flexible.

How deeply might your life be enriched  

after practicing 31 Days of Gratitude?  

Join me and find out.

{I host a linky party every Wednesday. More info *HERE.*  I'm sharing Gratitude for Ideas, flexible mind, and Imagineering with these fine folks, whose links open on ~ Sunday:  Sew Darned Crafty, I Should Be Mopping The Floor, Making Monday Marvelous, Brassy Apple, Craftomaniac, Alderberry Hill, Under the Table & Dreaming, Making the World Cuter ; Monday: Skip to my Lou, Cherished Bliss, Sugar Bee Crafts ; Tuesday: Not Just a Housewife, Elizabeth & Co., The DIY Dreamer, Tip Junkie's Tip Me Tuesday, Savvy Southern Style, What we Wore & Made, Uncommon, Gingersnap Crafts, The NY Melrose Family, Today's Creative Blog ; Wednesday: I Gotta Create! ,  All Star Block Party, The 36th Avenue, Live-Laugh-Rowe, Handy Man Crafty Woman, The Trendy Treehouse ; Thursday: Scissors & Spatulas, My Repurposed Life, Frugal Girls, Shabby Nest,  Romantic Home, French County Cottage, Stuff & Nonsense ; Friday: Funky Junk Interiors, Happy Hour, Anything Goes, Finding Fabulous, My Simple Home Life, Tatertots & Jello, Thirty Handmade Days, One Creative Mommy ; Saturday: Be Different Act Normal, A Bouquet of Talent, Tutus & Tea Parties, Six Sisters Stuff, Sew Country Chick, DIY Showoff, Positively Splendid , Nifty Thrifty Things}

I want to hear about YOUR techniques for generating ideas.

When do you tend to generate ideas?