For many people, they believe they are not creative at all. This is simply not the case; they have just been conditioned to hold it in through their upbringing. You can see young children being creative all the time… they are constantly painting, drawing, singing, story telling, playing, inventing zany inventions, etc. They are being praised by their teachers, parents, and friends and are just so happy as they constantly continue to create more. They are not being conditioned to hold back at all on their creativity.
So why do most of these people grow up thinking they are no longer creative? Once they reach a higher level of schooling there is too much information that they need to learn, not enough time to do things like day dreaming any more, subsequently they get in trouble for such things, they are discouraged to do it anymore, they get told its time to stop acting like a child and to grow up.
Only a small percentage seems to make it through their entire schooling career with the full belief that they are creative.

In recent years I have found that one of the biggest problems I face with my projects has been creativity, I simply couldn’t come up with any non-cliché ideas; I just put it down as creative block. For me, I believed that this creative block occurred 3 years ago after having 10 hours sleep over a 2 week period whilst working on several assignments, but by researching this topic I have come to realize that the creative block occurred not from the sleep deprivation, but from not maintaining the regular activities that I had been previously using. These activities were a part of my daily life and I took them for granted. Subsequently my projects suffered.

The hardest part of a project for me recently is starting it. I would always hesitate with the initial process because I was working on my story idea, and I truly believe that the most important thing in a project is the story. The worst thing I can do is to put off the initial stages for a later date. I know as soon as I have drawn up my plan it will take out much of the uncertainty of what I want to have achieved. Once I have my goals set in stone I know if I work constantly at it that I can achieve it. That still leaves one problem though… to make the plan… we need an idea… to have an idea, we need to be creative.

Brainstorming with a group of people is one of the most recommended ways of boosting your creativity levels, it dynamically encourages you to input and throw around ideas with other people within the project. It can be difficult to get your own idea in their without it being criticized, brainstorming will eliminate the weaker ideas at an earlier stage of the project avoiding more problems later on. At this point you will quickly find out what everyone will want out of the project and eventually come to a juncture where everyone can hopefully be happy. Once everybody is happy then everything has to be locked off. Only minimal changes should occur after this.
If you are working on a project by yourself, it may help to bounce your ideas off some other people working in the same field, but you will still need to have the idea to start your project.

A terrible habit I constantly got myself into while starting work on a project was to jump in front of the computer and just try and work on it. Sometimes this may work but what I have done in that situation was limited myself to whatever spontaneous thoughts I would get while staring at a blank screen. What I have learnt to do now is to get out into the world and to do some research before I start.
If for example I was trying to come up with an idea for an animation, and wanted to start my idea from scratch, one good way to jump start the creative thoughts is to grab a pen and small notepad and head to a café area during lunch hour where there are sure to be plenty of people. While there drinking a beverage of choice, take note of the surroundings; take notice of what people are saying, what they are doing. On a busy day there is bound to be someone doing something that can inspire a great idea. It’s good practice to keep a notepad and pen with you at any stage in case you see something in the street, or while you are shopping.
Every now and then everyone will come up with some catchy one liners or an interesting tune while out and about or in the shower, but by the time you go to write it down it is gone from your head, quite often, no matter how hard you may try, you will never be able to remember exactly how it went. However, those who are determined to get better at recording their creative bursts and expressing them, they will eventually have an easier time identifying when and where they will happen. Some people may find that they have more ideas in the shower, some may get them after an hour in the gym, everyone is different and it is up to you to find out what yours is and capture it.
Another great way is to keep a book and pen beside your bed ready and waiting for you for when you wake up in the morning or half way through the night, if you should have an interesting dream, it’s a wise idea to write it down as quickly as possible as soon as you wake up, as it is the best way to insure you will remember get most of it down before you forget; sometimes they will make some fantastic inspirational ideas for the future.
If you are type of person that has to travel a lot, it is handy to have a Dictaphone to say whatever ideas jump into your head whilst driving. Recently I have had to travel for four hours each day every time I had to go to class and although it is always the same stretch of road, every time I took that trip there would be something new or something interesting that would happen that would inspire a good idea. The Dictaphone is much safer than the pen and paper as writing something down whilst you are driving can prove to be a little dangerous sometimes.

At the early stages of exploring creativity, I found that by working on projects till the early hours of the morning, my creativity levels would peak at around 3am. It has been suggested that this is the body telling you that it needs to get to sleep; it is also said a brainwave pattern that occurs at this stage of the morning is very similar to the type normally had whilst dreaming. So while this may be good productivity for a short time on a project, it is unhealthy for the body. Dr Karl Kruszelnicki said that there are two times during the night that these brainwave patterns are occurring, the first time being 10:30pm and the second at 3pm, Dr Karl suggests being asleep at both of these times for your body to have the most beneficial sleep it can get. As a bonus, this should also boost your energy levels and concentration for the following day.

If you already have the topic to work on you can start your search through the most commonly used resources to help inspire your creativity. These resources may include books from the library, Websites, Magazines, Newspapers, Movies, etc. Just flood yourself with a wide range of resources that will stimulate that brain of yours to get creative. I find that even just exploring through stock photo internet sites or sites that are bursting full of true artists, that I can find even just one really interesting image that can encourage the idea for an entire story. Some brilliant sites that I regularly visit with these kinds of images are…
http://www.imageafter.com/
http://www.deviantart.com/
http://www.cgsociety.org/
CG Society in particular with their CG Challenges, they are always so good to watch at and follow through the progression of the competitions.

Drawing back from your own life experiences is another great way to create new ideas. Remembering that you don’t have to keep it exactly to how it occurred. New ideas are formed from combining two or more other ideas and combining them together into a new one.

Procrastination is usually seen as the negative side of creativity on a project; generally… it is… It should be avoided as much as possible. However, it has proven to be a positive side for my projects by generating ideas for the other projects which I was not currently working on at that time. It may postpone the project at hand but ideas can flow much more effortlessly when you have other things you need to be working on.
If the most important project is the one you are working on then you will need to try and discipline yourself not to get distracted.

Other ways of helping your creative potential shine is to exercise your brain through activities as mentioned before. There are many different forms of these activities. While studying drama we would always warm up before class by playing improvisational games that would keep us on our toes and kept our minds sharp. Most of the time our teacher would make the topic very hard so we would find it hard not to lose that particular game, making it hard is to get the creativity to try and work a little more fluently. “Whose Line Is It Anyway?!” Is a great example of these types of creative improvisation games.
http://www.whose-line.com/
Other forms of these activities that train your brain are actual games. The Nintendo DS has a range of games specifically designed to help get your brain to work at a faster pace and develop a stronger memory. http://dslite.nintendo.com.au/
“Dr Kawashima’s Brain Training: How Old Is Your Brain?” And “Big Brain Academy” are two of the most popular in the training series. Brain Training has even been supported and recommended by Alzheimers Australia.

The more you train yourself to capture and express your creativeness through more and more activities, the greater your creative productivity will be.

The following are 30 tips from Hugh Macleod on “How to be Creative”
http://www.point-studios.com/archives/2005/11/how_to_be_creat.htm

For the entire explanation of all 30 go to the following link
http://www.gapingvoid.com/Moveable_Type/archives/000932.html

1. Ignore everybody.
2. The idea doesn’t have to be big. It just has to change the world.
3. Put the hours in.
4. If your biz plan depends on you suddenly being “discovered” by some big shot, your plan will probably fail.
5. You are responsible for your own experience.
6. Everyone is born creative; everyone is given a box of crayons in kindergarten.
7. Keep your day job.
8. Companies that squelch creativity can no longer compete with companies that champion creativity.
9. Everybody has their own private Mount Everest they were put on this earth to climb.
10. The more talented somebody is, the less they need the props.
11. Don’t try to stand out from the crowd; avoid crowds altogether.
12. If you accept the pain, it cannot hurt you.
13. Never compare your inside with somebody else’s outside.
14. Dying young is overrated.
15. The most important thing a creative person can learn professionally is where to draw the red line that separates what you are willing to do, and what you are not.
16. The world is changing.
17. Merit can be bought. Passion can’t.
18. Avoid the Watercooler Gang.
19. Sing in your own voice.
20. The choice of media is irrelevant.
21. Selling out is harder than it looks.
22. Nobody cares. Do it for yourself.
23. Worrying about “Commercial vs. Artistic” is a complete waste of time.
24. Don’t worry about finding inspiration. It comes eventually.
25. You have to find your own schtick.
26. Write from the heart.
27. The best way to get approval is not to need it.
28. Power is never given. Power is taken.
29. Whatever choice you make, The Devil gets his due eventually.
30. The hardest part of being creative is getting used to it.

The following is taken from Robert Epstein
http://www.psychologytoday.com/articles/index.php?term=pto-19960701-000034&page=5
CAPTURING A DAYDREAM.
You can perform this exercise in a group or on your own–right now, if yon like. Just close your eyes and let your mind wander freely for a few minutes. You might drift off to the stars; you might see things you’ve never seen before. Just let your thoughts wander without deliberately guiding them. Okay, relax and get started. . . .

Did you leave the room? Did you leave the earth? Did you see or hear or experience anything that’s impossible to experience in reality? Given enough time and an absence of distraction, everyone answers yes to each of these questions. Behavior is generative–even the covert perceptual behavior that we call “thought.” This simple exercise is especially powerful because it can quickly convince anyone that everyone has enormous creative potential and that capturing skills are essential to unlocking that potential.

I’ve conducted this exercise all over the world, but I’ve been most deeply moved by its effect on audiences in Japan. Even bright, professional Japanese people believe that the Japanese are not a creative lot–this, in spite of the fact that Japanese patents now dominate many categories of Invention worldwide. But after a few minutes of capturing daydreams, Japanese audiences report daydreams every bit as bizzare and rich as Salvador Dali’s: “I saw you, the teacher, small, in my hand, and you turned gray and you shrank and disappeared.” (What would Freud say about that? Who cares?) “I flew to the top of the building next door, and I saw this building crumble to the ground while I ate a sandwich.” (IBM was located next door. Was this fellow hoping for a better Job?)