When you go to your favorite restaurant, do you read the menu, listen to the specials and still order the same thing? Do you sleep on the same side of the bed each night, even when you’re staying in a hotel room? Have you ever commuted home, pulled up to your house and wondered, “How did I get here?”

Yes? You’re not alone. This happens because, as you encounter the same stimulus day in and day out, your brain shuts down, not waking up until you reach your destination. We’re all prone to developing habits. While this is normal, the tendency to perform the same behaviors can limit our creative thinking at work. Without new stimuli, there are no fresh ideas.

To produce new ideas and unleash an imaginative firestorm, you need fresh stimulus. To learn some of the measures I wrote about to get into a playful, fresh mindset, read the rest of this article I wrote for Forbes last week, click here.

Photo Credit: Getty Images / Forbes