If you work alone, as I do, you can spend too much time stuck in your own head.

When this happens, you can get into a rut and not see other ways to do things. Or, you may just go blank when you try to think of new ideas.

If you’re feeling like you’re in a rut, you might want to try doing some of these to spark new ideas and new ways of thinking.

Move your tent

Sometimes you might love working in your home office and sometimes it might feel like the walls are closing in. Spending too much time in the same room can stifle creativity. When this happens, you might want to pick up and move to a new location.

Oddly enough, working from the back porch or kitchen table can feel like enough of a change.

Or, maybe you need to go to a coffee shop or co-working space. Those are options if you don’t need privacy for client calls.

Ask these questions

Sometime things aren’t flowing smoothly and you have a lot of things on your plate. All of us have experienced the grind from time to time. It can be helpful to pull up, look around, and ask yourself: What if this were easy?

Your first reaction might be irritation, but keep at it. What if it were easy? What would be different? How could you do something differently to make it easier?

Or, how could you change the way you’re feeling about it so that you are grateful for the thing you are doing.

Sometimes adding one word can make a world of difference for how you feel about your situation. I wrote this post about how adding in “get” changes everything for me. What if instead of thinking I have to send my newsletter out today, you think I GET to send my newsletter out today?

Think like a mentor

There’s that old joke about people asking themselves: What would Oprah do?

Get inside someone else’s head, preferably someone you respect. How would they feel about this situation? How would they solve the problem? You might uncover some new ideas.

Shake it off

Sometimes a great idea is hiding in plain sight and you are too tired or cranky to see it.

Get up and take a walk around the block, or put on some music and have a dance break.

Moving your body can definitely trigger creative thinking. The human animal wasn’t designed to sit in front of a laptop all day.

Actually, your best ideas may come to you when you’re not sitting at your desk. Your best ideas may come when you are doing something completely unrelated like showering or driving.

Shake things up from time to time and you will find yourself having more fun with your business and spending less time grinding it out.