5 simple things you can do to be more creative (even if you think you’re not)

Did you know there’s research that shows that everyday creativity -- simple things like cooking, drawing, and singing -- helps improve your emotional health? And it turns out what matters more than what you do or how well you do it is your intention: wanting to do something creative.

You don’t need to be a professional artist to be creative and you certainly don’t need any special gift to do it. Curiosity and the desire to explore something new are all you need to get more creative. Here are 5 easy ways to start:

Play with your food

Take a food that you eat anyway and make it way more fun. Color your pasta happy and make a regular meal shine with smiles from anyone who eats it. Pick up a new cookbook and try a bunch of recipes you’ve never made before. Switch up the day and have breakfast for dinner and dinner for breakfast. Pack a fun Bento lunch instead of your usual fare and be the envy of all your co-workers.

Fun-ify your journal

All credit for this amazing idea goes to the fabulous and outrageously creative Ashley Longshore. Spend a few hours browsing through magazines and cut out images that inspire you, then glue or tape them into your journal or planner. As you go through the year, you’ll re-discover them and have a tiny infusion of inspiration just when you need it most.

Blast your space with color

For one week add something colorful to different spaces in your home or at work. Buy a bouquet of flowers for your kitchen. Grab a pack of colorful pens for your desk. Highlight your outfit with a really bright scarf. Make it your color-week project and repeat a few times a year.

Soak up some art

Being creative doesn’t always have to be about making something: it can also be about hearing, reading, seeing, or thinking about something amazing. Make time to go to a museum or a gallery, and if you don’t have one nearby, browse some art online. Treat yourself to some poetry by signing up for a poem-a-day newsletter, like this one. Discover some new music with Spotify or Soundcloud.

Write a sentence a day

Writing can be incredibly therapeutic and you don’t need any specific goal to start. Just write. Consider writing just one sentence a day: you can see if you end up putting together a story or if you write something different every day. 750 Words helps you hit a daily word count. Another fun way to do this is to find a writing buddy and commit to creating a story together, taking turns writing it sentence by sentence.

Being creative isn’t something you need to be born with -- it just needs to be something you want to explore. Give it a shot. You might find you’re a lot more creative than you thought.