Are you looking for new ways to be more creative? Is your creativity flagging and in need of a boost? Then try one of these 7 top strategies to help you be more creative today:

1. Open your senses. When we experience the world around us, it’s through our 5 senses. And when we appreciate the art we most enjoy, again we’re taking it in through our senses, whether it be directly like with a painting or piece of music, or indirectly, such as a piece of writing describing scenes in detail.

It follows then we can be more creative ourselves by being more aware of our 5 senses. Go somewhere you’ve not been before and spend a few minutes just focusing on each of your senses in turn, absorbing every detail of your surroundings. The more you do this, the more it will enrich everything you create.

2. Gather your ideas. Without ideas, there’s nothing to create from, no starting point. It can often feel like you never have any good ideas, or any ideas at all, when what’s actually happening is your not capturing them, and they’re forgotten as quickly as they arrived.

Start an Ideas Journal, a pocket notebook you can jot down your ideas in as soon as they come to you. Keep it with you at all times, and use it as often as you can. The more ideas you note down, the more will flow to you, feeding your creativity with a healthy supply of raw material to develop.

3. Tame your inner critic. We all have negative voices in our heads that put us down, tell us we’re not good enough or that we don’t deserve to be creative. It’s very difficult to turn these off completely, but you can tune them out.

Your inner critic (let’s call him Bob) is just trying to protect you and save you from disappointment. So tell him this: “Bob, I appreciate your concern and know you’re trying to protect me. But I’m just going to carry on and be creative anyway”. Then do just what you told him you’re going to - create anyway!

4. Visit new surroundings. If you visit the same places all the time and have no new stimulation for your creativity, then pretty soon you’re going to run dry on inspiration.

Regularly go to new places you’ve not been before and take in your surroundings. Creative ideas and inspiration are everywhere, and when you visit somewhere different, this is heightened as there’s so much new stimulation. Take a camera or sketchbook or voice recorder to capture some of that new creative stimulation.

5. List your proudest creative moments. When you’re going through a difficult time with creating, it can be easy to forget that you’ve ever been creative in the past, and you start to wonder if you’ll ever be creative again! But yes, you were, and yes, you will be once more.

A great way to get back in touch with this is to list some of your proudest creative moments, those times when you enjoyed creating most, and could sit back and be pleased with what you created. Just write down the times that come to mind, and recall how you felt. By getting closer to these good feelings, you’ll be more inspired to find them again.

6. Take yourself on a creative date. One of the reasons many of us aren’t more creative is we feel we don’t have time. Our attitude is “I’ll sit down to create when I have time”, but of course this never comes. So approach it from the opposite direction, set time aside specifically to create.

A good way of doing this is to treat it like a date, just you and your creativity, spending some quality time together. By calling it a date, you make it more of a specific event, rather than it just being a chunk of time creating. Decide where you’ll go in advance, and what you’ll do, then enjoy yourself!

7. Create every day. This is more valuable than any other strategy there is for being more creative, and the core element for anyone who wants to be consistently creative.

Start with a small amount - say 15 minutes at the same time each day - to develop the habit. Once you’ve got used to the daily ritual, increase the time to 20, 30, 60 minutes and beyond. Within just a few weeks you’ll find you’re more creative than you’ve been in months, maybe years.

You can use any of these top strategies to help you be more creative, starting today. So which one are you going to use first?

Take the next step to increase your creativity today by getting your copy of Creativity Coach Dan Goodwin’s powerful and practical “Explode Your Creativity!” Action Workbook. It’s FREE when you sign up to the FREE twice monthly ezine “Create Create!” at http://www.CoachCreative.com