Maya Angelou once said, “You can't use up creativity. The more you use, the more you have.”

What if you feel like you have no creativity? You need a spark to invent something that was nonexistent before. Creativity is not only given to those innately born with the talent to create, but it can also be learned and harnessed to produce some of the most spectacular ideas. Sometimes, the wheel needs to be reinvented.

There are actually 40 principles of an inventive person, referred to as the TRIZ40. Rather than list them all, I've picked my favorite five.

1. Segmentation

Break it up. Whether physically with a hammer or mentally with all that dormant creative brain power. If you have a problem and want to work a new way around it, take it apart and learn more about how it works.

2. Color changes

Change the color of what you're working with or paint the walls around it. Make things stand out. Give it a different look. Maybe you'll find some function in all that fashion.

3. Universality

Create something to do; perform multiple tasks. Think about a cell phone. It's a phone, calculator, computer, gaming device, canvas, camera and so much more. Part of being creative means daring to combine things that haven't been put together, like mayonnaise and bananas on a sandwich (I've tried it. It's actually good).

4. "Blessing in disguise."

If something goes wrong, use it. Ruth Wakefield made chocolate chip cookies by accident, but if she hadn't tasted them, we wouldn't have those gooey, chocolate studded disks of deliciousness.

5. Inversion

Turn it around. When trying to create or improve something, flip it, turn it around, upside down, move it left, move it right and sideways. Go through your process backwards. Changing the perspective can change your mind.

In the end, it only takes a little switching around, shaking up and general problem solving to be a little creative. Next time you feel like inventing something or expressing yourself in a new way, try to remember these points.

You never know what great ideas you'll stumble upon.

It just might be the spark you need.

How much can you get done if you don't take that first step, take a chance and put something of yourself out there?

In the words of Oscar Wilde, “An idea that is not dangerous is unworthy of being called an idea at all.”