How to generate ideas when you can’t think of them

Lost for ideas? Uncertain what you want to achieve? How do you begin to generate ideas when you can’t think of them?

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.

Let’s explore how to generate direction-changing 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.

You may have already tried some of the popular ways to generate ideas but without success. Each has their shortcomings especially when you’re looking for a novel solution, an innovative thought, 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 AI with 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.

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?

I designed a foolproof way to do this in 2010 with 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 our intuition to find 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’ll fail to notice any ideas – or will override them in favour of other distractions we consider more important. In which case those brilliant ideas, those perfect solutions to your pressing questions, may hover around you 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 the gem of an idea is to dedicate quality time when you are available to receive it; when you are in an open and elevated state of consciousness, receptive to hear what the idea has to say.

The process of creating an Intuitive Vision Board requires your intuitive capacity to awaken. In being willing to make one at all sends out the signal you have slipped into 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 lands on it is a whole constellation of images, which are 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.

Amazingly what doesn’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 possibilities that alleviate your situation rather than reinforce the status quo.

An Intuitive Vision Board can help you over the hurdle of feeling stuck

Synchronicity generates ideas for you

The intuitive visioning process is designed to distract and quieten the logical-left brain long enough to give the intuitive-right brain the chance to communicate a breakthrough. You’ll no longer be lost for ideas but have an inspiring selection to choose from.

While the synchronicity that naturally occurs in the following weeks will ensure 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.