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Stuck on what to do next? How to brainstorm better ideas.
"I don't know what or where, but I do know it's neither this nor here." That's how a client once described being stuck, and it captures something important: often the problem isn't a lack of courage, it's a lack of ideas.
We have vivid fantasies about how it'll feel once we make a change, and often enough self-belief to know we could pull it off. The question we get stuck on is: doing what exactly? Trying to answer it, we hit two snags: not having enough ideas, and filtering the ones we do have far too early. We circle the same few options, conclude they're too hard or too expensive, and stay put. Usually we've skipped a crucial step, the ideation phase, so focused on the path in front of us that we never explored the landscape around it.
Getting past your inner censor
We all have those pragmatic, down-to-earth, "yeah but" friends with excellent judgement. The first rule of ideation is to avoid them, for now. You don't need extra party-poopers when your own internal censor is already killing ideas before they've fully formed. Julia Cameron, who wrote The Artist's Way, calls it the inner censor: on a good day it offers a dozen sensible reasons to drop an idea; on a bad day it tells you you're too old, too poor or too late to change anything.
The way past it is a technique credited to Walt Disney, who moved through three rooms: the dream room, the realism room, and the spoiler room. You enter each wearing a different hat. As the dreamer, your only job is to let your imagination run wild and generate as many ideas as possible, no bad ideas allowed. Think of the way you played as a child, before you questioned whether any of it made sense. Only once you're drowning in ideas (and most people move on far too early) do you step into the realism room, where you weigh the resources each idea would need. Finally, in the spoiler room, you judge which to pursue and which to drop. The rule: don't shelve a single idea until you reach that last room.
What to do when the ideas won't come
Most people fail to generate new ideas because they keep fishing in the same pond, catching the same fish over and over. If you want more and better ideas, fish in different ponds. There's a simple formula: new inputs equal new outputs. The more you expose yourself to unfamiliar ideas, people, industries and experiences, the more raw material your dream room has to work with. As Marian Wright Edelman put it, "you can't be what you don't see." There are countless roles and directions you've simply never heard of, and you can't consider what you don't know exists.
How to get better at brainstorming
We tend to think of brainstorming as a group activity, but you can do it alone. A set of practical tips:
1. Don't panic
If you're under real pressure to bring in income, now isn't the moment for a wild rethink. Stabilise first, lean on what you already know, and give yourself the bandwidth before making big changes.
2. Get it all out
Write down every idea the moment it arrives, in a notebook or a visual tool. The best ones tend to vanish by the time you've towelled off, so keep something to capture them close at all times.
3. Warm up with free association
Before you actively brainstorm, spend a few minutes in free-association mode, writing or saying whatever comes to mind. It's a fun way to wake up your imagination.
4. Trust the slow hunch
Great ideas often lie dormant before surfacing. Diffuse thinking, where your conscious mind lets go and the subconscious keeps working in the background, is why your best ideas arrive in the shower or on a drive.
5. Embrace chaos
Locking yourself in a hotel room with a flipchart rarely sparks creativity. Seek out novelty and a bit of mess instead, a new city, a walk somewhere unfamiliar, anything that breaks your usual patterns.
6. Ask "what might I fancy?"
Just before sleep or on waking, ask yourself the question and don't wait for an answer. You're instructing your subconscious to scan for opportunities in the background.
7. Forget the big idea
Chase the next idea instead, and then the next. Removing the pressure to be brilliant makes room for playfulness, and even a ludicrous idea can open the door to a good one.
8. Go for quantity
In the dream room, aim for volume, not quality. Set a numerical target, or keep going until you've filled a whole stack of Post-its.
9. Say "what I like about that is..."
Borrowing a rule from improv: never block an idea with "no" or "but". If an option excites you but feels too out-there, add it anyway, and note what you like about it, which often sparks more ideas.
10. Pick the right brainstorming partner
Two brains can beat one, but choose carefully. Find a creative, non-judgemental person, explain the dream-room rules first, or work with a coach who can offer a sounding board and frameworks.
11. Spot patterns
Take stock of what makes you feel alive: the shows you watch, the tasks that absorb you, the topics you'd happily learn more about, the dreams you parked when someone called them frivolous.
12. Combine ideas in new ways
Make random connections between the ideas on your list. Link two unrelated things and see what a third, unexpected option emerges.
13. Look at the adjacent possible
Alongside the wild ideas, include the nearby ones, the paths that open with only small changes to your circumstances, a different setting, a different employer, a sideways step.
14. Build a habit of seeking novelty
New inputs, new outputs. Cameron recommends weekly "artist dates" in unfamiliar environments. Take yourself on a regular version of that, somewhere that lets you feel inspired about your future again.
In short
Creativity thrives on chaos and novelty, so give yourself a proper incubation period, weeks or even months, during which you keep exposing yourself to new inputs, focusing on quantity rather than realism. There's plenty of time for "yeah but" later.
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