Do you look at a friend or a colleague and wonder just how they come up with such great ideas or how they can make subtle changes to something and make it totally new and exciting? Do you feel like you are stuck in a imagination-less rut? Not to fear there are steps you can take, things you can do, to be more creative.
Christina Desmarais shares Keith Sawyer’s tips from “Zig Zag: The Surprising Path to Greater Creativity” in her post 25 Ways to Be More Creative, Here are a few action items you can start with right away:
1. Be inquisitive. Ask questions
Creative solutions come from being inquisitive and asking lots of questions that may ultimately lead you to the questions that put you on the path to a creative breakthrough. When you are attempting reach a creative solution trying rephrasing the question 10 different ways and do it without overthinking it. One of your questions might be the catalyst to THE answer.
2. Invest time in the development of your creative muscle
Very few people have pure natural abilities. Yes, there are athletes like Tiger Woods and musicians and performers who impress us with their abilities but even they practiced as they climbed through the ranks. If you are trying to reach a creative conclusion in a specific area of business then you want to be the expert in that area before you can truly be creative in it. Dive in and immerse yourself as part of your process at getting to the solution.
In addition to being more inquisitive and taking more time to think you might need to do some internal reflection and ask yourself if you are possibly being your own roadblock to the path of creativity. Here are a couple tips to getting out of your own way from A.J Jacobs in How to Be More Creative:
3. Embrace the bad idea
Don’t be afraid of failure! A.J Jacobs summarizes this step perfectly saying that the powerful lesson is to “Accept failure. Enjoy it, even. Embrace the suck, for the suck is part of the process.” Have you ever avoided trying something because you were afraid of not succeeded? Can you see now in hindsight the potential that your idea had?
4. Embrace humiliation
Don’t be afraid of what other people think! For some of us this fear is greater than the fear of failure or it is coupled with the fear that people will see you fail and think you are less than you are. End this thinking right now! In A.J Jacobs post he chronicles, what he calls a painful experience, improv class. Learn to laugh at yourself and be free of the worry of what other people are going to think and say about you and you will likely feel the creative juices start flowing instantly.
Take your time with the above steps and be patient but know that the creativity is there; it just needs to be unleashed.