You know that feeling of deep shame when you’re playing guitar and you realize that you’re just repeating patterns you’ve played hundreds of times? I’m pretty sure that’s happened to everybody … except maybe Jeff Beck. In Eric Clapton’s 2007 book, Clapton: The Autobiography, E.C. wrote: “Jeff Beck once said to me, ‘Try to play something you’ve never played before.’ And that really stuck with me.”
So how do we do that? How do we break out of ruts, not just on the fretboard, but in life? How do we live more creatively—or at least more interestingly?
Creativity isn’t about waiting for a lightning bolt of inspiration. It’s about showing up consistently and doing the work. It’s a skill anyone can cultivate through deliberate practice and curiosity. After six decades of trial and error (plus a quick dip into some actual research), here’s my distilled guide to getting better at it:
- Curate Your Inputs Creativity feeds on diverse raw material. Read outside your wheelhouse—novels, science, history, whatever. Watch films from different cultures, listen to genres you’d normally skip, wander through museums. Travel if you can; if not, explore a new neighborhood. The broader your influences, the more unexpected connections you’ll make. Lately, I’ve been working my way through all 349 tracks the Nat King Cole Trio recorded for Capitol between 1943 and 1951. It’s reshaping how I hear everything.
- Practice Regularly Creativity is a muscle—use it or lose it. Carve out time for deliberate creative play: journaling, sketching, brainstorming. Try morning pages (three stream-of-consciousness pages, first thing) or random prompts. Consistency breeds fluency. That’s why I started this column 15 years ago—to force myself to create outside of music. Every month it’s like handing in a term paper. It’s torture, but it’s good for me.
- Embrace Constraints Limits breed ingenuity. I once watched Jared James Nichols play a three-note phrase 10 different ways, and each one got more interesting. A creative player can make the most vanilla song interesting by thinking outside the box. There are no boring songs—just boring players.
- Practice Divergent Thinking Train yourself to generate options. List 20 ways to use a brick, or 10 different endings to a story. Don’t edit early; quantity eventually yields quality.
- Take Breaks and Incubate Step away. The best ideas often arrive when you’re not chasing them. Mine come when I’m mowing my lawn, riding my bike, or taking a shower. Your subconscious keeps working while you’re off the clock.
- Collaborate and Cross-Pollinate Do things outside of your wheelhouse. In Japan, big companies practice jinji idō—regular personnel rotation across departments. An accountant might move to production, then sales. It builds empathy, kills boredom, and sparks fresh perspectives. Borrow that idea in your own life: jam with musicians from different scenes, trade ideas with non-musicians.
- Embrace Failure and Experiment Risk looking dumb. Every missed note or bad idea is data. Edison didn’t fail 1,000 times; he discovered 1,000 ways how not to make a light bulb.
- Cultivate Curiosity Stay in a permanent state of “What if?” and “Why?” Keep a notebook for stray thoughts and questions.
- Optimize Your Environment Surround yourself with stimuli that spark you—art on the walls, plants, good light. Declutter the rest. Find the spaces where your brain hums.
- Shift Your Mindset Drop the “I’m not creative” story. Everyone is; some just haven’t found their medium yet. Confidence is half the battle.
- You Must Be Present to Win Mindfulness isn’t an empty hippie cliché—it’s the price of admission. Get off your screen and pay attention to what’s happening.
“Aimless curiosity will take you places meticulous planning never could.”
Quick Boosters
- Meditate daily, even for five minutes.
- Play like a kid—puzzles, improv, anything without a goal.
- Learn something completely new (pottery, coding, tango).
- Take care of yourself. Get sleep, eat real food, and move your body. A foggy brain can’t create.
In a world where AI will soon handle most of the “building,” human creativity will be our most valuable currency. Creativity is gardening, not architecture. You don’t force it into rigid blueprints. You plant seeds, give them light and water, nudge them gently, and let them grow in their own wild direction. Aimless curiosity will take you places meticulous planning never could.
So remember: Stay curious, and keep experimenting. And the next time you pick up your guitar, try playing something you’ve never played before.
