How to generate ideas - can a vision board help?

Lost for ideas? Uncertain what it is you want? Where do you begin when you don’t know where to start? Can a certain type of vision board help?

Counter-intuitive as it may seem, what if the solution lies in not looking for the answers but allowing the ideas to come to you.

In this blog we explore how to generate transformational ideas in a non-thinking, intuitive way.

Where does ‘idea generation’ come from?

We’ve all had those moments of feeling flat and lacking in inspiration. When we’ve run out of steam over a particular issue and find ourselves stuck.

Perhaps you have already tried some of the more popular ways of generating ideas but without success. Each has their shortcomings especially when you’re looking for a novel solution, an innovative thought, or a breakthrough.

Why should that be? Let’s take a closer look at three popular idea-generating options and why they fall short.

Artificial Intelligence

AI can only help us to rearrange the pieces of what we have already provided the words for. It can’t fabricate something entirely original or unrelated, out of thin air. Only the human mind is capable of that and we usually describe such a person with that ability as a genius. And more of us could be genius in our own right if we knew how.

Mind-mapping

Mind-mapping can help us to visualise our thought-processing but you’ve still got to put one thought down on paper to kick-start the mind-mapping process. What if you can’t decide what that one thought should be?

‘Blue sky thinking’

Blue sky thinking requires you to define the topic(s) you want to brainstorm. This means you’re already influencing the direction of the brainstorm and narrowing the outcome before you start.

Neither will this two-dimensional approach permit you to entertain more than one topic simultaneously and how these ideas might collaborate to provide interesting solutions.

Becoming a channel for Creative Ideation, Intuition and Vision

So where do we go and how do we get out of our own way of thinking in order to generate creative, original ideas?

What if this required us not to think up ideas at all, not try so hard but to stay quiet and still long enough to let the ideas come to us?

In 2010 I designed a foolproof way to do this called the Intuitive Vision Board. By creating a giant collage of pictorial images, it uses a different side of the brain to our overworked logical left, namely the right-side of the brain and the intuition to become a channel for the ideas we seek.

Creative Ideation

Have you ever seen an idea? Nor have I. We can’t see electricity either but we still know it exists. Ideas are non-physical energy forms, which are driven by a single purpose: to take form. But this can only be achieved in partnership with a human being, which is where you come in.

These non-physical thought forms circulating around in the ether are on the lookout for a promising prospect to work with who has the inclination – and capability – to collaborate with them. When they find them this results in a physical creation, a manifestation.

Some of these ideas are good, positive and constructive. Some are unsavoury, negative and destructive. This is where we must employ our discretion to filter out the ones we are not going to entertain and allow them to drift to the next susceptible candidate.

We must be careful our filtering out doesn’t include good ideas too. There is a tendency when we’re preoccupied with the dramas of everyday life that we fail to notice any ideas – or override them in favour of other distractions we consider more important. In which case those brilliant ideas, those perfect solutions to our pressing questions, may hover around us for a while before moving on to someone who will listen and respond to them.

Intuition

Elizabeth Gilbert in her book Big Magic regards good ideas as bundles of unmanifested energy looking for a good home to nestle themselves in.

She also refers to the concept of ‘multiple discoveries’, first recognised in the scientific world. This is where the same idea can land in the morphic field of several potential ‘incubators’ simultaneously, on the basis that at least one will – and can – see it through to fruition. The good idea is very determined and likes to hedge its bets.

This creative process is not as random as it might first sound. Unmanifested ideas are intelligent. They will only seek out ideal suitors who are in need of the idea and capable of fulfilling the goal, even if they’ve never embarked on a mission like this before.

If you have been chosen you have it within you to do so. Your only challenge is to listen to your intuition and manage your logic long enough so it doesn’t censor the idea too soon. You must be wary of its attempts to talk you out of it, if it doesn’t immediately see the value of the idea or where it is leading.

Vision

One way to avoid missing out on ideas is to dedicate quality time when you are available to receive them; when you are in an open and elevated state of consciousness. This happens when you come to create an Intuitive Vision Board and sends out the signal you are in attendance and in a receiver mode. This is one very effective way to align your consciousness with universal intelligence and become a channel for creative ideation, intuition and vision.

The Intuitive Vision Board (IVB) is a large, pictorial collage. What appears on it is a whole constellation of images and individual ideas which also relate to one another.

This vision board will not be a shopping list of goodies to satisfy the lust of the Ego as vision boards of old once did. It has more integrity than that.

The Intuitive Vision Board is resplendent with profound ideas, ready to be manifested through you. It is your privilege, your destiny to do so should you choose to accept the invitation and engage with it.

Synchronicity

What won’t appear on your Intuitive Vision Board is any trace of the ‘stuckness’ or demoralisation you might currently be experiencing. This creative, intuitive process will naturally guide you towards that which alleviates your suffering rather than reinforce the status quo.

The synchronicity that naturally occurs in the following weeks ensures you are in the right place at the right time to act upon the ideas you’ve received. It will also become clear in which order you should take them.

Synchronicity is the word Carl Jung used to describe events that coincide in time and appear meaningfully related yet lack an apparent causal connection. It is the prerogative of the human mind to recognise it. A computer can’t.

How to generate ideas – can a vision board help?