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If you think you are not, read along. I’ll prove you wrong.
Want to be creative?
What if I told you that you always have been creative? Maybe you just didn’t look close enough.
If you have ever solved any problem, be it personal or professional, you have done this because of the trait of creativity.
Hence, the idea that creativity is restricted to a certain part of society is a false accusation.
We more often misconstrue the meaning of creativity because we develop biases.
I’ll shed some light on the matter and share with you some secrets to being more creative.
Let’s dive in…
Absolutely yes,
Creativity is a skill and is trainable.
While it takes some time to develop it is a manageable process. It requires you to develop a firm base of knowledge, discipline, and observation.
It’s just that we are always exposed to ideas that others have come up with but never taught how to think with our own unique perspective.
This dulls our creative knife.
Before we talk about the secrets of creativity, we must first loosely define the term.
“Loosely”
The closest possible definition would be a statement given by Brian clark
“seeing the intersection of seemingly unrelated topics and combining them into something new” — Brian Clark
To put it simply:
The ability to observe, break down, and perceive things with an unbiased perspective defines a creative individual.
So you see, it relies more on instinct and less on intellect.
By far we’ve established that creativity is a universal trait.
So assuming that some percentage of the populace is creative and some are not….is a moot point to discuss.
We lose our creativity because, while growing up we fear things, stop asking questions, fear failure etc, which leads us to lose our unbiased view of the world.
This brings us to what you’ve been so patiently waiting for.
Inspiration and originality are myths
The most basic aspect of creativity is ASSOCIATION. There is no such thing as an original idea.
Your brain is always seeing things and storing images since it works best to understand anything that is visual.
Creative people know how to access this and use it to their advantage.
They are always observing things around them, storing them, breaking them down, and analyzing them.
That’s the simple part. The actual skill lies in choosing the correct elements and arranging them together.
The problem is, we live in the age of information where we have a lot of resources at the tip of our fingers. So how to decide what elements to choose…..
A good practice would be to look for uncertainty. Make little sense of stuff.
“The chief enemy of creativity is “good” sense.” — Pablo Picasso
Creativity requires breaking out of your regular patterns.
Constraints
Constraints force you to make a unique decision.
It can be a little frustrating at the beginning, and you may feel blocked and tied down but bear with it.
When you hit your limit, it is the best time to change and adapt to situations to further your thinking process.
Constraints are the best catalysts to growing your creative abilities. They force you to take a unique approach to uncertain situations.
Constraints also decrease your chances of getting distracted. Since you have to be very careful because you are charging into uncharted territory.
One moment of lost focus could change the outcome of the situation. (which is neither good nor bad in this context.)
Make routines
Forming routines frees your mind to advance in many interesting fields of action.
It is good to have automated some of your actions; as it saves you time and energy.
And since a human being can only make some correct decisions a day, having a routine might eliminate this dilemma.
Most successful people have them because routines are just an aggregate of repeated behavior.
Routines make Great achievers seem almost “Monstrous”.
Break routines
Well yes,
Routines are great but, do them often and you start feeling a very strong monotony in life.
It can be dangerous because monotony accompanies demotivation.
When you feel things turning into some sort of factory line, break the pattern.
You are not a machine so don’t act start acting like one.
Document anything and everything
To overcome any block, you need a thorough knowledge of the situation you are in.
One important thing to consider is that:
Don’t apply too many constraints,
the setting should be such that you can still generate many outcomes.
One solution to get around the problem is to go deep, just keep on researching and analyzing until you reach a dead end.
If you look deep enough, you can find solutions to any problem. So keep track of what’s going on while you are tackling the issue.
While you are researching and analyzing, you will come across some experiences that you might not consider important.
But if you keep a record of what you’ve done and what you are trying to achieve, your records will give you the unexpected solution that you so desire, or at least a snippet.
Draw, paint, doodle, write
The sheer act of making art is more than enough to trigger unusual patterns in the brain.
I often doodled on the back of my notebooks during lectures and online classes. It’s just an urge I can’t resist.
When you do any sort of artistic activity you give the brain a chance to freshen up on all the collected information it has.
So, the next time you get an urge to do something artistic, I suggest you just go through with it.
Play
We grow up and lose the kid in us in the name of maturity.
If you have dolls, action figures, computer games anything of the sort…make good use of them as you would in your childhood.
Playing stimulates imagination, to an outsider a toy is just a toy but to a child that toy might become a part of the brilliant movie he/she is directing in his or her head.
Video games are even better for this because they give the sound and visuals to go with your scene.
They are proven to improve mental dexterity, problem-solving and event coordination.
Do something physical
Exercise forces you to shift from analytical left-brain dominance to more creative right-brain dominance.
It increases the blood flow and oxygen to the brain which sharpens thought clarity.
It stimulates imaginative thinking and the generation of new ideas, more than being in a sedentary state.
Maintain a resource library to capture insights
The human brain is not meant to hold information, rather it is very good at searching for information that is available physically in some form of a database.
By understanding and interpreting information with your logic and vocabulary, your brain makes it easier for you to relate to the material and its recall.
If you think about it, speculation only turns into a solid theory if it has a solid backing of preexisting knowledge. That’s exactly how you generate new ideas.
To capture the essence of the experience and turn them into interactive snippets. People keep online databases, excel sheets, PDFs, or even stacks of notebooks.
Some develop extensive note-taking methods so they don’t miss out on any insights.
Think like a kid
Kids are totally unhinged when it comes to asking questions. They don’t care about rules, theories, discoveries or opposing ideas because they don’t have any biases.
Thinking like a kid simply means that you should not worry about the question you want to ask.
There is nothing quite like the feeling of an unhinged thought process — becoming a Mad Scientist.
Experiment with seemingly unfitting ideas.
While all the secrets might take some time to develop but there are some actionable things that you can do starting right now.
Engage in observation sessions
Just stare out the window or daydream. It’s good for your brain to relax and do something that it isn’t actively doing.
Write down 10 ideas every day
Writing 10 ideas every day or rather forcing yourself to write 10 ideas every day helps the brain to get into the creative mentality
Embrace boredom
Boredom is the response of doing too much. The brain just loses all interest in everyday activities that you would do with the least amount of effort. There is an entire article on using Boredom effectively. Just click here.
Finding the creative groove isn’t that hard a job.
If you follow through with what we have discussed, I promise you that your creative quotient will go up.
Grind, make something, ask for feedback, take them into account and make improvements and repeat the process. That is what the real creative process is all about.
And keep asking yourself if you can improve on something or change something, what is something that people might need and don’t have?
Steve Jobs was the prime example of such thinking.
So I implore you to follow in the great man’s footsteps and keep generating crazy and innovative ideas to inspire the world.
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