10 Practical Ways To Be Widely Creative

There’s nothing more frustrating and career-damaging for a creative professional than facing creative block. This kills not only the productivity of a person but also destroys creativity and enthusiasm in doing things at work. Creative block is just a state of mind. If your mind is full of positive energies, it ignites creativity. Don’t bother yourself focusing on the negative side instead look at the problems as great opportunities in seeking alternative solutions to think creatively.

To help awaken your enthusiasm and sparks your imagination in doing your work, here are some useful insights on how you can maximize your creative potentials.

1. Say NO to PERFECTION!

Nobody is perfect. Creative outlets come in all different flavors and packaging. Some people didn’t know that they were blessed with creative gifts. They are unaware of it until they were given the chance to unleash their innate potential. To realize your personal gifts you have to cultivate curiosity, be courageous in venturing off into the unknown or uncertain, and stop being perfectionist and people- pleaser. Once you figure out what you love doing, your true artistic potential will just reveal itself.

2. Believe you have POWER TO CREATE

As an artist, you have to see yourself as a creative person. Believe that you have the power to creatively reinvent the world and your life. You must build that confidence because it is an important ability that motivates you in creating something out of nothing or ordinary. It helps you in thinking of breakthrough ideas and gives you the courage in pursuing your craft.

If you have enough personal creative confidence within you, nothing is impossible for you. But don’t get it wrong, enough creative confidence is different from having an over-inflated ego. Too much confidence can become a destructive creative sin so you must be very careful.

3. It is all about BALANCE

Maximize the capability of your brain. Use both sides of it if you want to generate more ideas in less time. Some creative works takes time before you can come up with a really good creation because most of the time you only use your right-brain. But today, try to exercise both hemispheres in harmony and look at the result of your experiment.  Maximize the ability of your brain. Be logical and creative in thinking ideas.

4. Creative Roadblocks: SMASH IT!

To make your creative fuel runs out of your brain, do not just break creative roadblocks. You must SMASH it with anger! Negative emotions and sometimes bad habits can be a great source of breakthrough ideas. Dig deeper to the problem or anything that bothers you and let your emotions speak through your craft. Some artists said that a person who is in the highest and lowest peak of his emotion is the one who can create great masterpieces.

5. Transform the MUNDANE into the SUBLIME

Some creative professionals hate staying in their comfort zones and playing safe because being safe means boring. Every individual has the freedom to step out of the norm. You are given with such gift so you must make the most of it. Do not limit your creative thinking in developing aesthetics or focusing in the same ideas and concepts. Reconstruction or transformation is needed to remove the shackles that hinder you in being wildly creative. Turn something ordinary into an extraordinary and see how it can change you to become a better creator.

6. The positive effect of REJECTION

When we say the word rejection, our minds are filled with negative thoughts and this is the reason why we get stuck in our work routine. To become more productive and creative in your career, you need to use rejection or failure in a more positive manner. Think of it as an opportunity to improve yourself and embrace the changes it will bring to your thinking.

7. Designing an OPEN SPACE with AMBIENT NOISE

A closed and small work space is sometimes the reason why people have difficulty to do creative work. There are distractions everywhere and as we all know this affects our concentration in our work. But did you know that a moderate level of noise in a workplace can actually break some monotonous pattern of thinking and trigger the brain to think abstractly? Yes, listening to music and those tolerable noise can be a good way to let your mind wander. Take advantage of this and make it a habit.

8. Be part of a CREATIVE TEAM

Some of us didn’t know it but creativity is actually a team sport. You cannot create a successful project on your own. You need to connect and work with other people  to have a fresh perspective in making new creative solution. To generate more ideas, you have to find people who have diverse background and skills set.  Ask their opinions about things and see how it can help you in coming up with good projects. Be part of a team that can help you enhance your creativity and can lend a hand in making your plan possible.

9. Find a MENTOR and seek support

Aside from being part of a creative team, you will also need a good guidance from a mentor. This can be your boss or a person whom you trust. If you have someone who can mentor you on  your creative endeavors and give you advice on how to do it properly you do not need to get worried if the management or the company you working for will support you.

10. Make ideas happen!

Do not focus only in thinking and making ideas because the most important step in creating a creative solution in your workplace is execution. Look where your creativity leads you because that’s the main point of it, you need to have results. Implement your plan. You have to determine how to make your ideas happen and how it will benefit your company.

http://under30ceo.com/10-practical-ways-widely-creative/

7 Steps for Putting Ideas Into Action

 

Here is a seven-step technique for developing ideas you can actually use to solve business problems.

Brainstorming is only a first step to innovation. What matters more are execution and implementation.

All of the above may seem obvious. Yet many companies struggle with it, say the authors of a new article from MIT Sloan Management Review. While brainstorming sessions "are frequently fun for participants, the output is too often considered impractical just days after the exercise."

A 7-Step Idea Generation Gameplan

As a remedy, the authors--consultants at Innosight, a global strategy and innovation consultancy based in Lexington, Mass.--offer a seven-step gameplan. Its purpose is to help you not only improve your brainstorming, but also to help you put your ideas into action.

1. Define the problem and solution space. The aim here is create boundaries in the idea-generation process. What customer problem are you trying to solve? "Constraining the problem and solution space forces idea generators to delve into an area," note the authors. "The result is typically a much broader range of ideas that are on target and have real potential to move forward toward impact."

For example, Innosight recently attempted to solve a problem involving the distribution of drugs for multidrug-resistant tuberculosis (MDR-TB). Along with their partners, they decided to focus on the drug supply chain. This boundary allowed Innosight to deemphasize other problematic areas (drug development, diagnosis, geopolitics).

2. Break the problem down. Use a visual technique, like diagramming. For Innosight, this meant mapping each part of the MDR-TB drug supply chain. They then were able to literally see all of the barriers to effective distribution. All told, they identified 12 barriers.

3. Make the problem personal. How do you make a business problem personal? By getting down in the trenches and observing the individuals who are affected by the problem (and who would also be affected by your proposed solutions). "The goal is to make it as real as possible to the people who will be generating ideas," they write.

4. Seek the perspectives of outsiders. In other words, don't solve the problem in a vacuum.  In this case, Innosight and its partners sought out public health experts, retail supply chain managers, and technology experts. "Having supply chain experts in each breakout group allowed us to make connections very quickly between specific chokepoints in the MDR-TB system and other supply chains where similar problems have been solved," they note.

5. Diverge before you converge. You want to breed some conflict into your discussions. Otherwise--as we all know--a meeting can quickly devolve into a time waster, where precious minutes are lost on the first ideas to be voiced, rather than what might be the best ideas. The solution? "Start by asking participants to write down as many ideas as they can individually for five to 10 minutes. In our experience, the technique has two benefits. First, it gives introverts--who may be shy about sharing their suggestions in a larger group setting--a chance to maximize their contribution. Second, having lots of ideas on paper before the discussion begins prevents the group from rallying around any specific solution too soon."

6. Create "idea resumes." An idea resume is one-page document listing the following attributes: how customers will learn about it or access it; what resources or processes are needed to make it a reality; and how the solution will achieve economic sustainability. The benefit of idea resumes is that (when they're finished) they allow all involved parties to scan and share ideas, in a way that invites "apples-to-apples" comparisons and "ensures that ideas are evaluated on their merits rather than on how well they are pitched."

7. Create a plan to learn. Your ideas, no matter how pristine they appear on their "resumes," will all contain assumptions that need testing. So the seventh step is to design these tests, and to spell out what you aim to learn from them. "And for businesses hoping to translate ideas into action," note the authors, "this is where the real work begins."

 http://www.inc.com/ilan-mochari/7-steps-ideas-into-action.html