New ideas, perspectives, and approaches are the most powerful tools you can use to move your work forward.

From stale to fresher. From good to better. 

What are your usual, go-to tools? Might you be leaning on them too much?

If the only tool you have is a hammer, every problem looks like a nail. 

You have a unique, creative DNA that makes you partial to a certain approaches of creating. Some examples:

1. Conceptual (e.g. Picasso, Bob Dylan)

2. Experimental (e.g. Cezanne, Leonard Cohen)

3. Big picture (Ansel Adams, Michelangelo)

4. Under-the-microscope (Proust, William Faulkner)

5. Coloring inside the lines (sticking close to the brief, or iterating closely on a rich body of established work)

6. Coloring outside the lines (Buckminster Fuller, Steve Jobs)

7. Coloring just inside the lines

8. Coloring just outside the lines

And on it goes. See what I mean?  

So: how long has it been since you got a new tool? Took a rusty one for a spin? 

If you're always polishing your work to a high gleam, try working in short bursts and calling it done after an hour. If you're trigger-happy to ship, sleep on it for a night before you press "Send". 

If you're always making photos of nature, try making photos of e-waste. And vice versa. 

Practice getting out of your comfort zone. Comfortable does not equal safe.