Creativity is a key part of intelligence. Every genius in every field was creative. Although some people seem to be more creative than others, anyone can learn to become more creative by learning how it works in the brain. When you become more creative, your skills at solving problems improve dramatically, your brain efficiency speeds up and you develop more and more effective ways of thinking and behaving. Creativity is what drives human progress and it can lead to huge positive improvements for you in your own life.

So, how do you improve your own creativity?

The essence of creativity is really about making lots of new connections. It comes from being able to see things from multiple perspectives and 'think outside the box'. When you focus on paying attention to possibilities, you direct your mind onto a wider perspective which accesses the creativity module in your brain. To me, there are 7elements which are essential to truely becoming creative.

1) HUMOUR

Humour really is one of the most important elements of creativity. Humour allows you to build more connections in the brain and puts you into a state where you can see something in a different frame. The more you practise ambiguities (like last months article suggests) and creating jokes, the more you will also improve your own creativity.

2) IMAGINATION

Your imagination is the true source of creativity. What's key is that you not only practise using it more to escape from the constraints that appear in reality but also that you improve your ability to imagine more clearly and precisely by adopting different submodalities and playing around with them to get new ways of thinking opened up.

3) QUESTIONS

You have to begin to ask yourself lots of new questions. Come up with questions that open up more possibilities. Practise the questions: WHAT ELSE IS POSSIBLE? WHAT ELSE COULD THIS MEAN? WHAT ELSE COULD I DO?

4) ART & MUSIC

Start using art or music more. Such activities are not only fun and highly enjoyable, they also get you using more of the creative part of your mind. The right brain which is associated with creativity is activated strongly when engaging in such activities. Even when you are working, practise doing so as an artform.

5) CONNECT

Take two subjects which are in no way related and put them together to create something new. It doesn't matter how wacky the idea, it just matters that you make a connection of som sort. This is the real foundation of most creativity: taking ideas that exist and combining them to create something new.

6) SLEEP

Sleep is when we at our most creative. Get used to writing down your dreams and come up with your own possible interpretations of the dreams. Pay attention to how imaginative you can really be.

7) STORIES

Put your problems in a story line. Imagine you ar ethe author and compose lots of different possible storylines from this situation. Do so as if you are writing about someone else. You'll be surprised with just how creative you can become doing this.

So, hopefully you'll find these seven elements of creativity useful to improve your own ability to use the whole of your mind!!