Inspiring Creative Thinking: Moving Beyond a Blank Page 

Headshot of Amelia Di Meo

Amelia, Research Coordinator, reflects on her experience of getting herself and past teams to think creatively when getting stuck.

Written by Amelia Di Meo, Research Coordinator, Master of Health Science in Translational Research 


During my time as a student, I worked on many creative projects where I often found myself starting off with a flood of ideas. There were many times where I couldn’t keep up with writing my own thoughts. Yet, one thing was guaranteed: the flood of ideas would always come to an unexpected, abrupt halt. Then, I would find myself staring at a blank page, unsure of what to write next. In these moments, I would feel stuck.  

When I started working as a Design Research Team Lead at the Innovation Hub, I encountered a new angle to this problem: Not only did I have to figure out how to get myself ‘unstuck,’ but I also had to figure out how to get my whole team ‘unstuck’ as well. Inspiring others to overcome writer’s block and think creatively was something I had never encountered before. It completely perplexed me at the time. From this experience, I’ve learned that getting stuck is quite normal, and it’s interesting to think about all the ways we can get ourselves and others to unlock our creativity and move our projects forward.  

Unlearning ‘Perfectionism’ 

A sheet of paper with a pencil drawing scribble lines. Decorative shapes pour out from the pencil.

After the initial excitement of a project subsided, I used to find myself spending hours and hours on a paper over a couple of days. Even if it was a short, half-page reflection assignment, I would often end up feeling paralyzed by self-doubt. I’d pour over every detail, unsure if what I was writing made sense, or if I even included the ‘right’ ideas. This hesitance to put anything on the page would live in my mind, leaving me in endless internal debate with myself about whether or not to include certain ideas. I’ve realized that uncertainty and perfectionism can really hold us back from moving forward when we let it take over us. 

When I was working as a Team Lead at the Innovation Hub, I was thrusted into a fast-paced environment with tight deadlines. I needed to quickly adapt to this environment by getting my ideas succinctly written down on paper – no more mulling it over for days! To do this, I learned to become comfortable with the idea of putting the first thoughts that came to my mind on a page – “braindumping,” as it is also commonly known. Being able to get my initial thoughts down, no matter how fragmented or unpolished they were, allowed me to override my ‘perfectionist’ mindset and get my thoughts flowing. I could then support my team members in doing the same. And the best result yet – we never left a brainstorming session with an empty page! 

Mindset Shifts 

A head connected to three circles that contain a square, a circle, and a triangle.

Shifting your mindset will move you into new creative territory. One way to shift into a more creative mindset is to take breaks. Breaks can be taken in a traditional sense, such as stepping away from an activity for a few minutes, but they can also be done by switching activities or what you’re currently working on to another, more creative task. 

To switch into a creative mindset, I had myself and my team play a game called “120 Rooms” as a warm-up activity before a brainstorming session for our research project. We had to imagine how we would design the rooms in our dream house. The timed nature of this activity – team members had to design as many rooms as possible within two minutes – prevented team members from overthinking and, inevitably, dismissing their ideas. With there being no restrictions on what they could include in each room, team members were encouraged to have fun and come up with very creative and unique ideas. Team members built every type of room imaginable, from rooms with large pools to rooms for playing all kinds of sports, and we shared lots of laughs along the way! 

Taking creative breaks can help to build a fun, low-stakes environment that takes the pressure off of team members to come up with the “right ideas” and, instead, encourages an idea to be generated, as sometimes ideas that we think are bad may actually turn out to be good. Through this activity, I noticed that my team were thinking outside the box and embraced all of their own ideas, no matter how unrealistic they were. During our work brainstorming session, my team members felt more comfortable sharing any and all ideas they had on paper. 

Big-Picture Thinking 

A person with two lines extending from their head towards a lightbulb with decorative shapes floating around it.

In the midst of data analysis, our research team was fully immersed in every detail of the data. We almost knew our transcripts by heart. Though knowing the data well was helpful to support the claims we made in our insights, it also became quite easy to get lost in the details and not see the bigger story. We were struggling with reading between the lines, taking data too literally, and not seeing common implications.  

When we worked with other members of the Innovation Hub’s Leadership team, they noticed this struggle right away. Because they were not as deeply immersed as we were, they listened to the data points we shared in our discussions and were quickly able to identify patterns of feelings and needs. We closed our laptops and spoke to what we already knew, often jotting the first thing that we could remember about the data down on sticky notes. The group discussion forced us to inherently summarize the data we had known so deeply to draw feelings, themes, and insights, which helped us to think about the data in a high-level way. Sometimes, we just need to zoom out from the little details, often with a change of perspective, in order to see the bigger picture. 

Trust Your Gut 

While there are many different barriers that can hinder creative thinking, I found that perfectionism can be the biggest barrier that slows us down. Perfectionism leads us to overthinking our ideas, which in turn, perpetuates feelings of self-doubt. Instead, I’ve learned to get my ideas down on a page, no matter how ‘right’ or ‘wrong’ they feel. In the end, it’s all about trusting your gut – and you should trust yours, too! 

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