How to Become More Creative?

“Creativity is intelligence having fun”

– Albert Einsten

Being creative, we believe, is an innate ability like singing and art. We confine it to only to art, music or dance.  Also, we generally tend to involve ourselves in a maze of discovering our creativity, that we end up killing that element in us. Let’s dig deep to find out secrets about creativity.

What is creativity?

We recognize creativity instantly but it’s hard to define it. Coming up with an “innovative” solution to any problem is creativity. Let me tell you that creativity is subjective. What I might find as creative, might not be creative for you. But the important thing here is not only thinking outside the box but also finding the solution. Many suggestions can be outside the box but unable to offer a solution. Such futile suggestions would not become creativity.

Source: artdesign.gsu.edu

We tend to think that some people are creative geniuses and can offer solutions to any problem creatively. But the truth is even those “creative geniuses” will require many attempts to come up with creative solutions. The difference between them and us is they are never afraid to fail and we are. Each one of us may have heard or read about how excellent an artist Picasso is and we definitely agree that he is creative. What we don’t know is he created about 50,000 works and only a few of them are masterpieces. If Picasso can’t make every work of his a masterpiece how can you?

Don’t be Afraid of Failure

If you want to be creative one thing you should definitely be away from is the fear of failure. Being creative means trying things in a novel fashion. If you want to be innovative you should try many different things and it is not possible when you are afraid of failure. Experimenting is the key here. As Edison said “I have not failed. I’ve just found 10,000 ways that won’t work”.

Be Diffused

Barbara Oakley, in her book ‘A Mind for Numbers’, clearly explained how our minds have two states, focused state and diffused state.  When you are too focused to see the complete picture you should stop concentrating on that particular task and relax. By doing this, you are allowing your mind to work on the problem in the background. This is the reason why great ideas come to us when we are in a hot shower or enjoying a meal etc. The best thing to do is to sleep on it, I mean literally. This helps you connect the dots in a way which you’ve never imagined.

Creativity is just like any other skill which can be acquired with practice. Try to think of new ways to do any work even the mundane ones (FYI it’s very difficult). You’ll definitely get better over time. Because as Jordan Belfort said

“The only thing standing between you and your goal is the bullshit story you keep telling yourself as to why you can’t achieve it.”

If you want more insights into how you can be more creative in your workspace, do reach out to our experts at YourDOST.