What is Innovation? It’s the implementation of creative ideas. What is creativity? It is the generation of new ideas. This means that innovation is built on creativity. What is creativity built on? It is built on the tripod of imagination, subject matter expertise, and general knowledge. If you want to be more creative, first you have to believe that you can be more creative. This often rests on establishing that you have an imagination and then learning how to improve imagination. Too many people say they aren’t imaginative or creative. It’s time to harness your imagination and bring your creativity to the world.

Building a Fort

As a kid, you probably grabbed the sheets off your bed hung them over a couch and a couple of chairs and called it a fort. Maybe you gathered your stuffed animals, which might have included a stuffed penguin, got your siblings together, and played games. Maybe it wasn’t a fort, it might have been a castle, a hotel, or some other structure. What it absolutely was not was a couple of chairs and sheets (unless your parents asked what you were doing with them). That was your imagination at work. You imagined a fort, and you built one, even if it didn’t look like a real fort, it did in your imagination. That was all that counted. You still have that ability to imagine; all you have to do is set it free. (If building a fort wasn’t your thing, maybe you played Hot Lava Monster.)

How to Improve Imagination

And you can still build a fort today. Even if you don’t have children, pull the cushions off the couch, find a giant cardboard box, or grab the sheets out of the closet and put your imagination to work for you. As an adult, you might even go one step further and build an actual fort with wood and power tools. You could also find stranger materials to build a fort, like Legos (affiliate link) or your IKEA furniture. Or maybe you draw the fort you see in your mind – the one that you imagine.

Get More to Improve Imagination

For more on how to improve imagination and creativity, join our Patreon. For exercises to practice imagination and creativity, check out “Penguinate! Positive Creativity” and “Penguinate! The Disney Company.” For more on improving creativity, subscribe to our blog, and get “Disneyland Is Creativity” and “The Haunted Mansion Is Creativity.”