Articles by Angie Dixon
Leonardo Trait Creativity Articles
I’ve written a number of creativity articles, and I’m constantly writing more articles as I get more ideas. I enjoy thinking about creativity and innovation and coming up with ideas, tools and tips, writing and creating articles that improve my own life and provide valuable, powerful, inspiring creatively enhancing opportunities and challenges for other creatives.
Sometimes ideas happen, and sometimes our best ideas come from serious work. I hope these articles will provide creative inspiration and creative ideas. You’ll find creativity tips here, and I hope you’ll get a great idea, find an article that stimulates creativity, even if it’s nonsense creativity.
I believe we all have our own brand of creative genius, and we’re all capable of creative genius
and we can all use creative thinking techniques. If you do not yet know your creative style, please take a moment to take the Leonardo Trait Creativity Quiz (opens in a new page). And by all means, enjoy the articles.
3 Steps to Capture and Nurture Creative Ideas
If you’re like me, having ideas is not the main problem. I have ideas all the time. But until recently, most of my ideas disappeared because I didn’t capture them, and I didn’t take the time to nurture and expand my ideas. This is a common creative problem; we’re so busy with our lives that we don’t always get our ideas into our long-term memory and mental processing areas where we can do something with them. [more]
5 Reasons to Be Absurdly Proud of Your Creativity
If you live in the same world I do, I’d wager that you hear people saying “I’m not creative,” and you say it yourself. To which I say, codswallop, for two major reasons. The first reason is that I love to say codswallop and I take every opportunity to do so. [more]
5 Ways to Be a Little Creative and Restore Your Creative Flow State
Have you ever had creative problems? Writer’s block, creative block, things just not going well in your creative life? If you’re like me, you definitely have had creative “flow” problems. And you’ve probably felt, as I used to, that the solution is to try harder to be extremely creative. Surprisingly, that is probably the worst thing you can do. [more]
The Creative Wow! Allowing Yourself to Be Remarkable
You are remarkable. Yes, I am talking to you. And yes, I know that you are remarkable even though I have never met you and I know nothing else about you. I know that you are remarkable because I know that the human mind makes you remarkable. All humans are remarkable, at least potentially so. And I know that you have accomplished remarkability because you’re reading this article. [more]
Creativity: Play to Create a Product
Have you ever noticed that we sometimes get carried away with turning our creativity into serious work? I noticed this recently when I was working on a book, and nothing seemed to be going well. I finally realized that I was not having a good time. And for me, the enjoyment of the writing is a major ingredient in the success of the books. In fact, if I’m not making myself laugh, I’m not engaging anyone else, either. [more]
Creativity—Say Yes and Get Moving
Do you ever have a great creative idea, a really great one that you can’t wait to work on-and yet you don’t get in there and get started? If so, congratulations, you’re just like every creative person I’ve ever known. We all spend a lot more time thinking about creative pursuits than actually creating. [more]
How Creativity and Maturity Work Together to Create Miracles
At age 22, fresh out of college, I understood that life experience would help me be a writer, but I didn’t have much. I hoped that over time I would have a life that provided me with things to write about, and the intelligence and intellectual curiosity to write well. [more]
How to Allow Creativity as a Spiritual Practice
Have you ever looked at someone who had a really deep, full spiritual life, and wished you had that? I know I have. One thing I discovered was that most of the people I admired had a strong spiritual practice outside of organized church or other gatherings and services. [more]
How to Avoid Creative Overwhelm
I love my creativity. Don’t you? Don’t you just sometimes feel like being creative is the coolest, most exciting, downright “funnest” thing in the world? I also sometimes hate my creativity. I feel overwhelmed by all the creative projects I’ve taken on. Sometimes I feel that my creativity wrote a check my brain can’t cash-that I’ve agreed to something that I *should* be able to do, but that I just don’t feel I’m capable of doing it. [more]
How to Develop a Creative Practice for Life
There are two kinds of creative people in the world-those who divide everything into two categories and those who don’t. Okay, now that I have that out of my system . . . . I understand that some creative people consider their creativity a sideline, a hobby. If you are one of these people and do not want or need to make a living off of your creative products, that’s great. [more]
How to Free Your Creativity from the Sense of Obligation
As a creative person, I’ve noticed two major problems with my creative output, or really with the process of creating. For a long time, I only created when I felt “inspired,” and spent a lot of time “waiting for my muse.” I didn’t produce very much, and what I did produce in these spurts was not very good, because I got rusty. Not only did I not write every day, I sometimes didn’t write every month, because I was waiting for “inspiration to hit.” [more]
How to Get Creative Ideas Anywhere
As creative people, we sometimes think we need to be in our “special place” to get ideas–that working on our creative projects requires going into our creative caves and concentrating for hours. Certainly a creative space is important; I love my office and get cranky when someone else invades it while I’m trying to work. But the where of creativity is not nearly as important as we sometimes think. [more]
How to Get Lots of Creative Ideas
Creativity includes several elements, starting with getting an idea and carrying through to the final product. I normally like to focus on how to actually use creative energy and produce creative “stuff,” but I also know that finding ideas can be a challenge for many people. [more]
How to Improve Your Creative Experiences
One question I get a lot about creativity is, “How can I be more creative?” What most people mean by this question is, “How can I improve my creative experiences?” They either want to be creative more of the time, or they want to produce more ideas during their creative experiences. [more]
The Role of Creativity in Our World
In our current society (the western world in the twenty-first century, generally, and the US culture I live in, specifically), creativity gets short shrift. Look at the recent Wall Street meltdown. The upsurge in salaries and the focus on the “best and the brightest” working in these firms contributed-a lot-to the problem. [more]
How to Stimulate Your Natural Creative Mind
I’ll start with the obvious objection here, and answer it straight out. Yes, you do have a creative mind. Unless you’re not human, you are creative. And if you’re not human, and you’re reading this, please drop me a line; I’d love to know about your experiences here on Earth. [more]
Striking a Balance Between Writer’s Block and Eureka Rush Shock
You almost certainly know what writer’s block, or creative block is, or what it’s perceived as. When someone has a creative block, they are unable to create. I believe that the primary cause of creative block lies in fear. All creative people experience fear that we may not be able to create as well or as much as we hope. I’ve had paralyzing creative blocks, and I definitely believe mine were related to fear. [more]
Thinking Creatively and Acting Now
As a creative person, do you have a problem with actually accomplishing your most important goals? If you don’t have this problem, not ever, then I’d love to hear how you manage that. I have this problem more than I like to admit. However, I get more done now, take more action, than I once did, because I’ve learned to take action even when I’d rather be sitting around thinking about how great my idea will be “when.” [more]
Why Make Time for Creative Pursuits?
Want to make more time for your creative pursuits? Who doesn’t? I’m a professional writer, so I spend hours every day writing, but I don’t always make time for “leisure” writing, and I sit inside on far too many beautiful days instead of grabbing the camera and going out on a shoot. [more]
Your Creativity Serves the World
I love the Marianne Williamson quote, “The world is not served by your thinking small.” I think that all too often, creative people feel we’re not important to the world, or that our creativity is not a valuable offering to contribute. I absolutely disagree with that. I believe that creativity is as valuable as any other human gift, and more valuable than most creative people believe. The problem is not that creativity is not valuable. The problem is that we do not value our creativity enough to make the huge creative contributions to the world that we’re capable of. [more]
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