Today, creativity is highly valued both as a feature and skill. This happens because a creative approach is connected to problem solving and finding ways to overcome obstacles. It will be useful in various fields of your life: from studying to private troubles. So, in our times, being creative is not an advantage, but necessity.
Here are ways to increase your creativeness level.
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1. Look at the Nature to Get Inspired
A famous Velcro (hook-and-loop fastener for clothes or shoes) was invented after watching the nature. Swiss man George de Mestral, its inventor, noticed that sticky burdock seeds latched to his clothes and his dog’s fur when they were going for a walk in the forest.
He used a microscope and saw, that seeds had little hooks that allowed them to latch on something in order to spread out seeds. He understood that the same mechanism can be used in other fields. This became a start of product creation. The product itself is known as Velcro fastener in many countries of the world nowadays.
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2. Follow Andy Warhol
Take a well-known form, image or object, and turn it into something new and fresh. One of the most outstanding jobs of Warhol is a list filled with soup jars. Anything can become your inspiration: old photos, circus or carnival pics, shop window and many other things. Turn the world into something special.
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3. See Tips from Successful Creative People
The Internet is literally overwhelmed with tips:
- Tips from writers;
- Tips for students;
- Tips for designers;
- Tips for directors.
Start collecting those tips: use a blog, a notebook or any other instrument (Evernote, for instance).
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4. Collect things that attract you
Whether you call it collecting, gathering or storing, the point is your will to get surrounded by your own things. Then you will be able to get inspired after you just look at them. Those things can be: wrappers, jars, cinema tickets or even pieces of the cloth.
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5. Persist
The Chinese bamboo grows in a very strange way: you water it during 5 years but nothing happens. That is what you see outside. Under the ground, bamboo makes its roots longer and longer for many meters. Then, on the fifth year, the tree can grow up to some tens of meters during six days.
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6. Be The Tireless Warrior
Davy Rothbart, the founder of “FOUND Magazine”, created a website, then a magazine, and then wrote a few books based on the collection of notes, letters, photos, magazines and to-do-lists people threw out onto streets.
His success started when someone left a note on the windshield of his car by mistake. Davy says, one has to have their skin tough if they want to try leading their ideas to the world. He used to deal with many denials, because bookstores refused to accept his magazine.
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7. Improve Your Visual Thinking
Visual thinking means using pictures to solve problems, think about complicated tasks and communicate more effectively. It leads you outside the lined world of written words, electronic lists and tables into the world of maps, drawings, symbols and diagrams.
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8. Make a Reframing of Your Mistakes
Edward de Bono thinks, that everyone needs to find another meanings for different words and situations. For instance, words “failure” and “mistake” are wrong and kill creative thinking. Replace them with directive phrases: “I’ve got a new possibility”. It is much better to have many silly ideas, than not to have ideas at all.
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9. Think How to Combine Usual Objects
Many creative people define “creativity” as the ability to see connections where nothing was before.
Here are some examples:
- Wheels + sports shoes = roller skates;
- TV + music = MTV;
- Clock + alarm signal = alarm clock.
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10. Stay Away of the Crowd
Here is Hugh McLeod's advice: do not try to stand out from the crowd. Avoid being in the crowd at all instead. Ask yourself: “How can I avoid going with the crowd?”
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11. Practice Mind Perception
Instead of turning the TV-set on, listening to music and surrounding yourself with noise and other distracting factors, practice relaxed, beholding state of mind. This mental state is the most fitting for creative thoughts to get into your mind.
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12. Use 4 Roles for Creative Process
This is a part of Roger von Oech’s tips from his book named “A Kick in the Seat of the Pants”. Use four creative process roles: Explorer, Artist, Judge, and Warrior.
- Explorer: when it is time to look for new information, use explorer’s thinking. Step away from a well-known way, be curious and pay attention to something unusual;
- Artist: when you need to create a new idea, let the artist come out on top. Ask “What, if…?” and see hidden possibilities. Break the rules, use creativity methods, exaggerate anything, see things from various points of view;
- Judge: when it came to the decision, if the idea should be implemented or it needs something to be added or excluded from itself, see yourself as a judge. Suggest and make a decision.
- Warrior: when you make your idea true, be a warrior. Be excited with your idea’s realization, deny any excuse and do what is to be done in order to reach your goal.