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Ever feel like you’re out of ideas and can’t seem to come up with anything useful? You’re not alone! Even the most intelligent people and successful creators struggle with this from time to time. The good news is, new ideas don’t need to come out of nowhere—there are ways to cultivate them. In fact, coming up with a great idea often involves setting yourself up for inspiration and giving your brain the right starting points. This blog post will guide you through simple, actionable steps to kickstart your creativity, so you’re never left without a good idea again.
What You Can Use Ideas For in Life
In life, ideas are the starting point for so many exciting things. Whether you’re in business, creativity, or just day-to-day problem-solving, fresh ideas are key.
If you’re an entrepreneur, good business ideas can lead to new products, innovative solutions, or even side projects that evolve into something bigger. In creative work, such as writing, painting, or even game design, the first idea might not always be brilliant, but it can lead to a flow of better ideas over time.
Even small things, like a fresh perspective on how to solve a distinct problem, can make a big impact. The best part? You don’t need a ready-made idea right away—sometimes, all it takes is an open mind and the willingness to start.
No matter the field, ideas help you tackle difficult problems, come up with solutions, and ultimately, lead to great opportunities.
5 Tips To Keep Having Useful Ideas?
1. Make it your job to be constantly inspired.
Most people treat inspiration as a fleeting emotion that strikes once in a while and then disappears for an unknown period.
In reality, it’s very easy to be inspired in the 21st century, considering there are countless podcasts, blog posts, YouTube videos, social media posts, series, movies, books, poems, songs, pictures, art, etc. to find inspiration from. Â
If you find that you are lacking useful ideas, whether for creative or business endeavors, you need to make it your job to stay inspired. You must intentionally expose yourself to new things, whether digitally or out in the real world. Set an actual goal to try one new thing a week or even a day.
This can be as simple as watching a new movie or even taking a different route when walking your dog. Inspiration is everywhere. Most of the time, we’re just too stuck in our routines to come across it.
2. Be ready to record your ideas at any time.
As soon as you come across something inspiring, new ideas will pop into your mind at random moments. It could be during a museum visit, in the shower, or while you’re falling asleep.
The key is to record these ideas as soon as they hit you. Don’t wait and overthink whether the idea is good or not. Don’t wonder where it suddenly came from. And most importantly, don’t think you can write it down later! Â
Ideas are slippery, and as quickly as they appear, they might just leave you again. So, write your idea down or leave yourself a voice memo. Record as much of the idea as you can in the moment.
Sometimes it may just be a couple of words. Other times, as soon as you start writing, the whole idea unfolds and leads you down a tangent, one you may return from an hour later. These moments can’t be planned, so be as prepared for them as possible.
3. Stop trying to force an idea into existence.
While you need to be ready for the sudden ideas that strike, you must also be prepared to wait for an idea to come at all. Keep looking for inspiration, but don’t try to drag it out of hiding.
Imagine it’s lunchtime, and you’re walking through a city, slowly searching for restaurants. There’s no rush because there’s still time, and lunch has barely started.
That’s how you should treat the wait for a new idea—with patience and faith. It will come eventually. It always does, but sometimes it might take a while. That’s life.
The waiting and unpredictability of ideas is the price you pay for the privilege of using them. It’s a pretty fair trade, don’t you think?
4. You need to act on the ideas that you get.
We all get inspired occasionally, which results in ideas. But sadly, most ideas are never realized. Just think about how many ideas for a story or a business people have, and how few of them are ever put into action. Maybe you’ve had a few of your own, now lying forgotten in some dusty corner of your memory.
Of course, you don’t need to act on every idea or pursue them all at once. But if fear, limiting beliefs, or staying in your comfort zone are your only reasons for discarding an idea, then you should see it through.
The more you act on your ideas, the more will come to you. As Elizabeth Gilbert beautifully describes in her book *Big Magic*, you need to put in the work. Ideas aren’t meant to stay ideas—they’re meant to be turned into reality.
5. Stop having such high expectations for ideas.
The question that naturally arises is, of course, how do we know which ideas to pursue?
As a general rule, an idea doesn’t need to be a glittering unicorn to be worth pursuing. Plenty of seemingly ordinary ideas have turned into great, if not outstanding, work.
Take your favorite painting, book, or movie—imagine what its creator’s original idea might have been like:
- -The core idea behind *Star Wars* was simply a young hero thrust into a galactic conflict with space battles and mystical elements. It doesn’t sound nearly as exciting as the franchise it became. Â
- The *Mona Lisa* likely started as a commissioned portrait of a wealthy merchant’s wife. A simple idea became an extraordinary masterpiece through da Vinci’s attention to detail. Â
- J.K. Rowling’s initial idea for *Harry Potter* came on a train ride—what if a seemingly ordinary child finds out he’s a wizard? That doesn’t sound like a magical unicorn of an idea, does it? Â
- Ed Sheeran’s *Shape of You* started with a simple, relatable concept—physical attraction. Yet, the song turned into a global hit. Â
As you can see, we tend to place far too much importance on the “quality” of an idea. Great work doesn’t require a groundbreaking idea. It requires *any* idea—and action.
At the end of the day, the only way to come up with plenty of ideas is to be open to new experiences and keep your mind in motion. Don’t let the search for the “perfect” idea stop you from exploring all the potential ideas you already have. The first step is often the hardest, but once you’re in the flow, you’ll realize that inspiration is everywhere.
Remember, a simple idea can turn into something extraordinary with hard work and time. So, good luck! Keep working through the process, and soon enough, you’ll have tons of ideas to pursue for the long haul.
