The No.1 Mistake That Stops You Having All The Creative Ideas

A common issue for creative writers is a lack of ideas.
We complain we either can’t come up with enough new ideas, or the ones we do come up with don’t fit the current writing project we’re working on.
How often have you thought to yourself “If only I could come up with more great ideas, my writing would reach new heights…” ?
Well, there’s one huge mistake we’re all guilty of making when it comes to having creative ideas.
You see we don’t actually need to HAVE more ideas.
All of us are capable of having all the wonderful ideas we’ll ever need.
We need to CAPTURE more ideas.
Over your lifetime, how many great creative ideas for writing have you had, and then gone on to expand them into something creative, of substance and passion?
How many other ideas have you had, thought “I’ll remember that idea and use it later”, then completely forgotten it moments afterwards?
And how many MORE ideas have you had that you’ve forgotten you even had?!
So what can we do, what’s the solution to this No.1 mistake?
The secret is in the capturing of the ideas in their embryonic form. Imagine ideas are like seeds on the wind. You might see one of these seeds float by you on the breeze and admire its tiny form. If that’s ALL you do though, that little seed’s going to carry on floating by on the wind. You’ll never see it again. You’ll never find out what it could have become.
But what if, instead of just gazing passively, you caught that seed in your hand and put it safely in your pocket?
Then when you got home, you emptied your pockets of all these tiny seeds you’d captured and planted each one in nutrient rich soil, gave it a little water, and popped it in your greenhouse for a bit of sunshine.
When you return to those seeds a few days later, you’re going to see a few green shoots. Sure, some of the seeds won’t sprout. But most will. Keep doing this, keep being a seed catcher, and pretty soon you’re going to have a different problem. You’re going to need a bigger greenhouse!
The point of this story is this:
If you notice your ideas only briefly then let them disappear through your fingers, they’re gone forever.
But if you capture them the moment they occur – a pocket notebook is great for this – and let them gestate a little while, you’ll soon have a healthy crop of growing ideas to use whenever you need them.
This one change – realizing and overcoming this major mistake that so many of us make in having ideas – will mean you’ll always be equipped and ready with more ideas than you’ll ever need for your creative writing.
So start catching those seeds today!