Sometimes, even the most agile and fertile minds can come up empty. Just about everyone who has ever been tasked with a creative process has experienced the feeling of a long, desolate slog through the desert, hot sun beating down upon the featureless plain of the mind, bare sands stretching to the horizon. As unpleasant as this feeling is, it isn’t permanent. There are numerous strategies for re-energizing the mind and allowing the warm rains of creativity to nurture the thirsty sand once again.

Creativity is not innate, and it isn’t an external force that swoops out of the ether. It’s a learned skill, one that combines imagination, curiosity, and passion with knowledge. With this is mind, let’s look at a few strategies for reenergizing your creativity.

One of the easiest ways to boost yourself creatively is to simply take a walk. The mere act of walking will send more oxygen to your brain, giving you a cognitive jumpstart. Just the act of moving around can be enough to help you break out of a mental rut. New sights, sounds and smells can spur new ideas, or help refine existing ones. It might seem like a trivial thing to get out and take a walk, but you’ll be surprised at how effective it can be if you’re experiencing a creative drought.

Similarly, changing your setting can do wonders for your ability to create. Changing your environment will enable you to tap into your brain’s innate talent for observation. A feast for the senses might be just the thing to bring some fantastic new idea bubbling to the surface. Try working in the serene stillness of a park or take in the bustling energy of a coffee shop. Any change in scenery is going to bring put your senses to work, and possibly, an avalanche of new ideas.

One obstacle to creativity is the dreaded inner critic. Most of us have a voice in our head that filters the good thoughts from those of questionable quality. That’s the voice that tells you, “Yes, she might be pregnant, but we’re not going to ask”, or “Yes, my boss, does in fact, experience flatulence, but we’re going to keep that little tidbit under our hat.” In many cases, this inner voice is very helpful in preventing embarrassing situations and the occasional lawsuit. But the inner voice tends to run automatically, and when you’re trying to create, an automatic idea suppressor is counterproductive. Sometimes, you have to deliberately turn off the suppressor and allow the ideas to come. This activity is known by many names-brainstorming, blue sky thinking, freewriting, and daydreaming-but the purpose is the same: to turn off the inner critic and say yes to everything that comes into your head. Yes, you will get a lot of pure garbage this way but mixed in the mental refuse will be precious gems, that, once polished, will be worth sharing.

But the best way to ensure your creativity continues to flow is to nourish it while it’s there. It’s easy to come home after work and plop down in front of the television and stare, glassy eyed and vacant at whatever images you find on the screen. But what if you took this time to pursue things that interest you? Read some fascinating history. Tinker with an old radio. Fire up the router and finish that table you started and never finished. Creativity is really the art of combining knowledge in new and interesting ways, so the more you know, the more material you’ll have at your disposal. Gregor Mendel, the father of modern genetics, discovered inherited traits because of his love for gardening, something he’d studied as a child. You never know how a piece of knowledge might be useful, so collect as much as you can, and if it’s a subject that fascinates you, you’ll have a great time doing it.

Too many of us think that we have to be inspired in order to do something. But you’ll get far better results if you flip that on it is head. Do something to be inspired, and you’ll be surprised at the results.