10 Steps to Creativity

Innovators and creative individuals find an interesting idea, come up with ways to implement it, and present their invention to the world. And the amazing thing is that everyone has such abilities. The main question is: how to make friends with your creative side? Marty Neumeyer wrote a guide to developing creativity called “Break the Rules!” We have selected 10 tips from this book that will help you find and implement creative ideas. Rule 1. Learn to learn In the 21st century, an illiterate person will not be someone who cannot read and write, but someone who is unable to learn, continue learning, and relearn. The ability to manage the learning process accelerates personal growth exponentially. When you learn to be your own teacher, you will be able to acquire any skill and build new skills on top of existing ones. Rule 2: Invest in Your Originality Originality is more than just prudent imitation. It’s the ability to dream and break away from the logical train of thought. Like other skills once thought to be innate, it must be learned. Depending on your level of knowledge and imagination, originality falls into one of four categories: 1) ideas from the same field 2) ideas from another field 3) ideas new to you 4) ideas new to the world As your experience and creativity grow, you’ll find yourself discovering new categories of originality with each new idea. Rule 3: Study the Style of Those Worth Emulating To discover your own style, don’t be afraid to be influenced. Keep a close eye on the people, groups, and cultures you admire. Of course, it’s one thing to stand on the shoulders of giants, and quite another to cling to their pant legs. Try to borrow the principles behind their work, not the work itself. Copying teaches little. Rule 4: Choose Your Niche Choose a field that will allow you to put your whole soul into it. Devote yourself entirely to an activity that corresponds to your interests. When you do something not just well, but with soul, you gain a huge advantage. And then ordinary work becomes exceptional, and the narrowest niche turns into a whole world of possibilities. Rule 5: Practice Creativity always contains an element of craftsmanship, a set of practical skills that combine aesthetic judgment and creative tools. A musician must make his instrument an extension of his mind and body. A cabinetmaker must learn to “feel” his equipment and materials. A CEO must be able to understand various types of reports, metrics, and control mechanisms. Without practical skills, you will certainly be able to generate original ideas. But you will face difficulties in materializing them - when you want to demonstrate, develop, test, and simply share them. Therefore, nothing will work without practice. Move in small steps, studying everything that comes your way. Rule 6. Make mistakes Instead of being afraid of mistakes, you should welcome them. After all, when it comes to creativity, mistakes are clues. Each of them partially lifts the curtain of the mystery that you are trying to unravel. Rule 7. Strive to receive constructive criticism When you work in a creative mode, you more often use your imagination and intuition. But you are also more likely to make logical errors. The best cure for logical blindness is feedback from people who can constructively criticize your ideas and give instructions on how to proceed. Even slightly irrelevant feedback is an instruction if you take it objectively. Remember, anything that doesn’t kill your idea makes it stronger. Rule 8: Feed Your Passion Creativity depends less on time management than on your passion and “passion management.” Passion is the deep excitement you feel about your business, project, or profession. It is the engine of creative genius. The key to passion is to treat it like a resource, like a savings account or a garden. If you want to maintain a balance in your bank account, you need to deposit money into it. If you want to have a garden, you need to tend to the plants. If you want to feed your passion, you will have to invest in projects, learning, and inspiration. This investment can be in the form of reading, attending seminars, workshops, internships, participating in charity projects, and other activities that bring you pleasure. Rule 9. Stay Focused Leonardo da Vinci had the perfect ability to focus. He was a very active and sociable person: he dressed in the latest fashion, was friends with royalty, attended and hosted brilliant social events - and at the same time he could disappear from sight for several weeks to think without interruption. Thanks to this discipline, he created a huge number of works of art and inventions, and in addition left behind many diaries with notes, of which about seven thousand pages of handwritten text have survived. Screenshot 2015-06-18 at 13.37.43 You will not be able to completely disconnect from the world. But you can block it out temporarily while you work. Independent work will do you good. Rule 10. Break the rules The rules of creativity are not a rigid scheme, but general models that artists and scientists have followed for centuries when creating their works. Familiarization with them will broaden your horizons and allow you to cope with any task that requires maximum concentration. Therefore: 1) Test the rules, following or breaking them. 2) Evaluate the result. 3) Rewrite the rules in accordance with your own experience. And then it will turn out that the rules of creativity do exist - they are your own rules. They will not necessarily be followed by others, but in your case they will be perfectly balanced and suitable for you. Go ahead!