Back in 2013, Adobe did a survey of 5000 working adults in the U.S., U.K., Germany, France and Japan and found that only 25% of these folks believed they were living up to their creative potential. This is consistent with my anecdotal experience from thirty years of work in high tech, much of it spent in an area, product development, which is supposed to create new products.
Most people believe that they are not creative, or that they are being blocked by something external to them – a boss, an organization that de-values risk-taking, or maybe just a really busy life- from fulfilling their creative potential.
The survey by Adobe also found that “respondents overall reported that they spent less time creating at work than they did outside of work.” Which is fascinating, and hopeful for you as an individual if not for the organization that you are working in.
I find these results troubling, in part, because the very best moments of my own work career, and perhaps even my life, have occurred when I was engaged in creating something. When we are creating, when we are challenged mentally in ways that are beyond ordinary work, when we lost track of time – these are often the best of times. Especially when we are working with other people that we care about, even love, and everyone is focused on making their contribution to the act of creation.
We may or may not be able to fix the organizations that we are working in today. There may be, and usually are, thousands of things they could do differently to enable creativity and innovation, but we are rarely in control of all those things.
That’s the bad news.
The good news is that – for all of us, almost always – there are opportunities to re-focus ourselves away from whatever everyone else is whining about at the moment (just turn on cable news if you need more ideas for what to whine about) and towards creating something valuable.
The mere act of engaging in creating something new and better makes us feel better. And, more good news, You Are Much More Creative Than You Think.
People systematically underestimate their own ability to create, in part, because they associate creativity with Thomas Edison or Steve Jobs or Elon Musk – in other words, with breakthrough innovations and “aha moments.” But as important as those kinds of innovations are, creativity is about much more than that. It can be creating a new team, a new streamlined process, a new customer experience, or even a new family (what is more creative than that?).
I believe we are all, fundamentally, creative beings – we just don’t know it.
Here are ten ways that You can be more creative Now.
Destroy Your Voice of Judgment
I’ve been working lately on writing more. I’ve read lots of books on how to write. They all say the same thing – the way to become a better writer is to write, and the way to write is to be willing to write crummy first drafts.
In other words, you can end up writing better, perhaps even lyrically, only if you are first wiling to write a first draft. Quite frequently, though, when I am working that first draft there is a voice in my head saying, sometimes loudly, “Doug, this is crap.”
To write anything you have to kill that voice – not quiet that voice, kill it. There will always be times for revisions later, and that’s why they have people called editors.
You need to destroy your voice of judgment to engage in any creative act – whether you are creating a book, a product, a new system, or a new company. There are always reasons why “it isn’t possible.” The world is full of critics. Creators are willing to do the first draft, the first product version, the first business plan. They are the people who change the world.
Engage in Deep Work
It’s really hard to create something new if you are constantly responding to email, texting your friends and family, hanging out on social media, or trying to do three things at once.
We live in a 24/7 wired world, and as important as we are of course very few of us really need to be “on call” all the time. Most of us, thoracic surgeons aside, aren’t really dealing with life and death 24/7.
Most acts of creation require what author Cal Newport calls Deep Work. By deep work, I mean work that engages you intellectually, where you need to string thoughts together preferably without being distracted, where you are very engaged in the vision of what you are creating, where you may even lose track of time. Newport argues, compelling, that deep work is valuable, rare, and meaningful. It is also how important, creative things get done.
To be sure, the place where you are working may or may not recognize the value of Deep Work. But I can promise you that if you create the space for it in your life, you will recognize its value.
Quiet Your Mind
Quiet mind is the opposite of what the Buddhists call monkey mind. Most of us get through the day with a zillion thoughts racing around our minds in seemingly random order; that’s monkey mind.
Quiet mind is about learning how to figure out which of those zillion thoughts are worth something, perhaps even worth acting on. The actions you can take to quiet your mind depend on your circumstances and personal preferences, but the landscape of choices is relatively finite – go for a run, take a walk (like Socrates did), get a coffee, take a nap, listen to music, meditate, maybe even talk to your significant other.
Once you learn what works for you, make it a ridiculously regular part of your day. You can’t create anything until you learn to quiet your mind.
Connect to Your Purpose
Lately, I have been working on a project with a friend where we are interviewing people who have accomplished big things, like starting a company from scratch. One of the early learnings is that when people connect to their sense of purpose, in a very personal way, they can do amazing things. Those with a very strong purpose view obstacles, no matter how large, as if they were pebbles in the road they are heading down.
For many of us, myself included, connecting with purpose is a lifelong project. Sometimes we even need a new one because we achieved something big (watch out for the letdown after that).
So, it’s not always easy. But finding and having a purpose or, said another way, a vision of what you want to create, dramatically increases your creative horsepower.
Steal Ideas from Others (and Give Them the Credit)
For about ten years, I was the chief innovation officer in a healthcare tech company. You would think that meant I needed to have a lot of original ideas but, luckily, that wasn’t really the case. In fact, I was working with many smart people, whom I soon discovered had many ideas. Especially those working closely with customers had many more ideas that we could possibly execute. Ironically, as the chief innovation officer the last thing I needed to worry aboutwas having enough great ideas.
Instead, I focused on helping select the best ideas, rapidly and efficiently test them, killing the ones quickly that sounded good only on paper, and scaling up the ones that got market traction.
I learned that ideas are easy to find – you just need to protect them, especially when they are new and fragile and disruptive. What is less easy to find are people willing and able to drop what they are doing and help execute them. You can easily take ideas given to you by others and run with them, as long as you give them the credit – which happens to be the right thing to do and costs you zero dollars.
Listen Better
Anyone who has ever spent time in a meeting knows that deep listening is a rarified skill. Most people in the meeting would rather spend their time either figuring out what they are going to say next, or disconnecting via their phones.
Yet, deep listening is a critical way to get creative ideas. Folks are genetically wired to tell you what they are worried about and what’s on their mind and, especially, the problems that they don’t know how to solve. If you can train your mind to move from those observations to thinking through how the problems could get solved, you are well on your way to being more creative.
Seek to Understand Connections
Creativity is often about connecting two things that already exist, in new and unique ways. I don’t own a Tesla, but it seems like it’s basically connecting software to vehicle engineering and manufacturing. And Tesla is without a doubt disrupting the car industry. The I-Pod got market traction because it connected MP3 players to a new music distribution system. Starbucks connects coffee drinking to the concept of a “third place” to hang out besides home and work.
Creators understand that you don’t really need to invent anything new to change the world. You just need to connect things that already exist in new and unique ways.
Learn More
Now for the bad news about creativity. It doesn’t come for free; you need to do the work. Your best chances for being creative are to have both diverse interests, so that you can connect things in unexpected ways; but, also, to immerse yourself deeply in fields of learning that you are passionate about to the point of being on a mission.
Which means that when you get stuck, the path for getting unstuck is often to double-down and do more work. The more that you learn, the more surprised you will be at the ideas that just pop into your head.
Be More Disciplined in Your Thinking
There is a myth about creativity that you can be totally free-spirited and nevertheless consistently produce creative work. Yet, even the most seemingly free-spirited rock bands, at least the ones that stick around for a long time, have a creative process. Even if they don’t call it a process. Just read a famous-rock-star-biography, of which there are many, if you doubt this.
Certainly, creative people enjoy allowing their minds to wander. But that doesn’t mean they aren’t disciplined thinkers. They adopt daily habits that are easily executable for making sure they stay disciplined. Most writers, of all genres, keep a journal to record their thoughts and observations.
Dive Into the Pool
For all creatives, their comes a scary moment when they need to put their work out into the world. This is scary because as soon as the work goes into the world, it’s flaws will become clearer. It is also scary because once you release the work into the world, it no longer really belongs to you, no matter what the IP lawyers say. You no longer control its destiny.
Creative people find the courage to put their work out into the world, even with its flaws. Or, as Steve Jobs succinctly put it, “real artists ship.” That’s the only way to make the world better.
You can be more creative today by adopting these ten practices, or even some of them. And you don’t need anyone’s permission to do so; in fact, I believe you were born creative. There are gifts you have that only you can give to the world.
As the poet Mary Oliver, who just died, famously wrote, “Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?”
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