The Grasshopper has offered a shortcut to creativity – “Make room in your mind.”

Long ago, someone smarter than us discovered that you can only hold onto roughly seven bits of awareness at any one moment in time. If your seven bits are occupied, there’s no room at the inn for anything else.

I discovered years ago what being bored was – being bored with your thoughts. The same thoughts running around in your mind for the umpteenth time lead to boredom, stagnation and being stuck.

We all own the experience of getting creativity from out of the blue. Perhaps you were taking a shower when it happened – just feeling the warmth of the water cascading over you body and your thoughts seemingly washing down the drain. Voila! In pops a creative idea into the vacancy in your mind.

Now that you know how it happens by happenstance, it’s time to see if you can create that vacancy on purpose. How? Make room in your mind.

There are lots of ways to go about this. One way is to set an intention of coming up with a solution for a dilemma and then go and do something that occupies your attention. A severe example would be rock climbing. It would be foolhardy to be thinking about anything but your next move when you’re 100 feet off the ground. Simpler versions could be washing the car, doing a workout, having sex or a host of other things that need your attention.

Reminds me of a story . . . back in the 80s, I remember reading an article in the Wall Street Journal about a successful stockbroker who picked his stocks right after having sex with his wife. He didn’t know how it worked, he only knew his stock picking skill increased directly after sex. I’m tempted to use a “two birds with one stone” reference here.

Another way is to write down what you need a solution to and put that intention on your nightstand and look at it before you turn off the lights and go off to sleep. If you make this a regular practice, you will begin to notice more creativity showing up. Don’t believe me, just sleep on it and prove it to yourself.

There are a zillion meditation methods to choose from and, when practiced, they make room in your mind.

Creativity shows up when your mind calms down. It’s that simple.

You won’t think yourself to a creative solution. Minds need room to create, not more debate.

Bottom Line: Making room in your mind increases your chances for creating a way out of a bind.

All the best,

John