Today's Mentor Monday is a special guest post by Pamela Wilson of Big Brand System.

I've mentioned Pamela several times before, including sending you all to her wonderful Design 101 e-course and her Top 10 Design Mistakes e-book.

You'll have another chance to experience Pamela's fantastic design skills on Friday when we'll feature her 5 Ingredient Design Recipes e-book, so be sure to stop back Friday!

But today it's all about you and your ideas--and avoiding those creative mousetraps that try to snare us all.

Take it away, Pamela!

Are You Stuck in These 4 Creativity Traps?

It's a make-it-or-break it trait. You can't really succeed in business if you haven't mastered it. And it's a loaded word that seems to strike fear in the average person.

What is it?

Creativity.

When you can tap into creative thinking, you'll find an endless source of ideas and potential solutions.

But that's not enough to convince you, is it?

If you can feel yourself resisting the notion that you can harness creative thinking for your business, you've probably fallen into one of the four creativity traps here.

Do you see yourself in the descriptions below?

Trap 1: You Think You're Not Creative At All

Maybe you started out feeling creative when you were little. You may have made up songs and stories, or drawn elaborate pictures complete with protagonists and plot lines.

At some point, probably around third grade, you may have started to feel less creative. This is typically the point where children start to identify themselves as "artists" or not.

You may have a relative or friend who's creative. You compare yourself to them and feel like you come up short.

Or someone may have told you early on you weren't creative, and you decided to believe them. I'm here to tell you they're wrong.

How do I know?

Did you make a meal for yourself in the last week? That's combining unrelated ingredients to produce something new. That's creative.

Did you tell someone about your day? That's story telling, and that's creative.

Did you think about your future and your goals? That's using your imagination to visualize the unknown, and that's creative.

The truth is, you use creative thinking every day. You just might not recognize you're doing it.

Trap 2: You Think Your Ideas Stink

Maybe you have tried to think creatively, but you feel like your ideas aren't valuable.

The next time you need to generate high-quality creative ideas, try these techniques:

• Generate lots of them. Challenge yourself to think of 20, 50 or 100 ideas about the problem you're trying to solve. The first ideas you come up with will be the standard solutions, but the longer you push yourself to think, the more creative your ideas will become.
• Make weird connections. True creative thinking is born out of combining seemingly unrelated ideas. Albert Einstein called it "combinatorial play," and credited the practice with helping him come up with some of his most innovative discoveries.
• Give them time to gel. You can't rush creative thinking. When you're trying to sort through a problem, think about it, take some notes and register a few ideas. Then put the problem aside and do something else. Let it rest. Sometimes during the resting period a great idea will bubble up.

Trap 3: You Can't Think of Your Ideas After You've Had Them

Has this happened to you? You're driving your car, not thinking about anything in particular, and suddenly you know exactly how to solve the problem you were working on a few hours before.

Or you're in the shower, and a fantastic solution rains down on you.

When inspiration strikes in strange places, it's good to be prepared.

Here are some tools I use for capturing those elusive creative ideas before they fly back to where they came from:

• Evernote: This free application sits on your computer and allows you to store, tag and sort web content, PDFs, photos, ideas, checklists and more. They have a smart phone version, too.
• AquaNotes: If your best ideas come to you in the shower, this waterproof paper and pencil are the perfect solution.
• Scrap Paper: I invested in a paper cutter years ago, and regularly make "scrap pads" using a hole punch a metal rings. I stash pads all over: in my office, in the kitchen and on my night table.
• Memo to Me: If I'm on the road or away from any place to write something down, I call my office and leave myself a voice mail message with my idea.

When you have lots of ways of capturing the ideas that come to you, you'll keep your mind open to them. You'll find that ideas will come to you in the strangest of places, and you'll be ready for them when they arrive.

Trap 4: You Think and Think, and Never Do

Maybe the creative trap you've fallen into is that you think and think, but you never actually implement.

Ideas are cheap, after all. They're not easy to come by--you have to work for quality creative ideas--but they're cheap.

Creativity comes to life when you put your ideas to use. At some point, you have to stop thinking, and start doing.

So pick an idea and test it out. Don't be afraid to try. If it doesn't work, so what? You've got a lot more ideas where that one came from, right?

Promises Worth Keeping

Don't let these flawed assumptions trap you or keep from harnessing the power of your creative thinking. You are creative, and you have the ability to generate plenty of innovative ideas.

Promise yourself that you'll honor your own creative thinking by setting up systems to capture those ideas. And promise me that once you've generated some great ideas, you'll stop thinking and start doing.

Because we deserve your very best. And so do you!

About the author: Pamela Wilson helps small businesses build big brands with great design and marketing at Big Brand System. Get her free Design 101 e-course and learn the basics so you can polish up your marketing materials right now.