Here are the 5 lessons I learned from taking a class that pushed everyone to be more creative than they previously believed to be possible.
Following a process is important
Creativity is made out to be a divine intervention. Sometimes great ideas strike us out of nowhere, but creativity can be deliberate. Our natural tendency is to run with the first good idea. The only thing that helps us get past this and come up with even better ideas is the process. A process will push you to come up with more ideas and thus better ideas.
Sources of inspiration are everywhere
New ideas are hiding everywhere. The good news is that they’re hiding in plain sight! Never say, “I don’t have any ideas.” There are idea generation techniques where you can just take a random image and start brainstorming ideas from there. There is no longer any barrier to entry to having an idea and no excuse for being unable to create something new!
You can draw inspiration from cartoons, skateboarders and the environment. Make connections between random words to form wild ideas. The number one problem I hear from people who say that they’re “not creative” is that they don’t have any ideas. The problem is that we’re in our own way. The ideas are out there, we’re just not letting them come.
Never stop iterating
It’s nice to be done with something, but if you truly care about that thing, you should try to make it better. Seek feedback because your perspective is always going to be different from others. What’s obvious to you is puzzling to an outsider. We often are much too close to our own projects to have any idea how confusing it really is.
Put your work out in the world
In order to iterate, you have to release your work into the world. It doesn’t have to be a huge public launch, but you have to show someone. There is nothing scarier than saying “this is something I made” and waiting to see someone’s reaction, but this what you need to do in order to grow.
Use play, humor and activity to break down barriers to creativity
The more free people feel to be themselves, the more creative they are going to be. Giving people the room to play allows them to release their inner creator. David Kelley, from IDEO and the Stanford d. School, was once concerned that they would need to teach students how to be creative. It turns out this wasn’t the case. They simply needed to remove all the things in the way of their creativity.
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