I wrote about why you should be curious on Wednesday and today we’re taking it into what you can use your curiosity for, how you can create something totally new by being curious.

When you’ve been creating in a certain way for a while, it’s easy to feel like your work has become a bit stale, or even to get bored with it. By applying some curiosity to it, you can make it feel interesting again. It may also evolve into something completely different that you enjoy doing.

What you have to do, is to start exploring. Let’s say you’re writing for your blog and you’ve been writing on the same subject for a couple of years. I know that can feel boring after a while, especially if you’re a multi-passionate or love variety like I do.

The next time you start thinking about writing a blog post (or doing something else), try this:

• Learn about a different angle of the issue. Maybe there’s something related, or something causing the problem you write about? Maybe there’s something that they need to do before they can work with you? Learning is fun, and it can bring you so many new ideas.
• Try using different images for your posts. Drop the stock photos and take your own, preferably with your face, or draw your own illustrations.
• Make something with your hands that represents your chosen field, and write about how you did that.
• Switch tools. If you usually write on your laptop, try a voice to text (for example the one in Google Docs) and speak your post. It will have a different flow to it than when it’s written. Some also recommend writing by hand.
• If you usually only write in first-person, try re-writing it in third-person, to see what that does to the story. And vice versa of course.
• If you’re not writing about people or other living things, give it a try.
• Explore how you can turn the story in your post into a fairy-tale.
• Have some fun coming up with new words to use, maybe for the title, or for a quote they can tweet.
• Try doing your work somewhere else. Most of us get glued to the computer when writing. I want you to take your writing where you wouldn’t normally write: Up a tree, at a cafe, in a hammock. It breaks the monotony, and it may inspire you to write differently too.

You can use the same explorations for other things than writing too 🙂

It’s a good idea to keep a list of things you’d love to explore, places you’d love to go, things you’d love to learn. Make a note on that list every time you come across something interesting. Pretty soon you’ll have tons of new and fun ideas on how to do what you do, and it will show through in your work.