Instant Creativity: How to Open the Floodgates on Inspiration and Good Ideas

Here’s a simple but massively effective tip on how to put yourself into a hugely creative state. Are you ready for it? You’ll miss it if you blink 😉

Take a shower.

That’s it! Instant creativity. Every morning, when I take a shower, the ideas start to flow as fast as the water. It’s a virtual torrent of solutions to problems, article topics, visual imagery, product ideas, or new ways to teach and deliver value.

It’s all there ready to write down or otherwise act on when I’m out of the shower.

“But that doesn’t happen for me. Thanks for nothing!”

Relax. Here’s how you can gain instant access to your creativity (and I don’t take that claim lightly – you really can do this).

First, let’s look at why this works for me, and then chunk up to find the principles at work.

When I shower, I’m engaged in the simple task of washing the body. I’m in a space I spend only a small fraction of my day. It’s a different environment.

And one more thing about the shower. As the water vaporizes, it charges the air with negative ions. Same thing happens at a surf beach. Human beings feel good when in an environment charged with negative ions.

Make it Work for You:

1. Change your environment.
2. Engage in menial/manual work.

The new environment stimulates the senses. Menial work encourages you to become consciously present. The shower is a natural place to focus on your body, and the body is the path to becoming present and spiritually aware.

So presence changes your brain state and allows the compulsive thinking of the chattering “monkey mind” to take a break. A working meditation.

The blissful void of presence and engagement in a task will be filled with “higher-level” creative inspiration, and the tremendous motivation that goes along with it to get the job done. Inspired right-action usually follows.

You can see how this is similar but different to a closed-eyes meditation, where the goal is presence and stillness for their own sakes.

How to cultivate the Creative State

If a simple shower doesn’t yet have this “instant creativity” effect on you, don’t worry. You can build up to this slowly. Just keep meditating, and the time will come. Or find another environment to “trigger” the state (I used to go into the state when I was a teenager mowing lawns).

Tips

I don’t ever take a shower with the purpose or intention to have a good idea or gain an insight. It just comes unforced. Treat it with patience and respect.

It’s a lot like life in that respect. Do the work in the spirit of giving, not expecting anything in return. Ironically, that’s when the magic happens.

The more you meditate, the more creativity you bring into your waking life. The creative showers came only after a year or so of meditation, and have been gaining more and more power ever since.

Where do you think I got the idea to tell you about this?

“Everyone who’s ever taken a shower has an idea. It’s the person who gets out of the shower, dries off and does something about it who makes a difference.”

~ Vinay Joshi

Enjoy your next shower 😉                                   Photo credit: Winterofdiscontent