The 8 rules to live by & gain power over your creativity again.
By: Maurille De Smalen
Tags: Innovation, Lifestyle, Creativity, Brain, Personal Growth

What can you do in our everyday moments to boost your creativity?

Our creativity levels have dropped. And even with all the training programs in the world, we should understand HOW creativity works not just learn the “think out of the box” tricks.

According to Alex Osborn, an advertising executive and the author of books about creativity, creativity is a way to have great ideas and to solve problems. His book “Your creative power”subtitled: “How to use your imagination to brighten life, to get ahead”. Osborn wrote about creativity for the first time in 1939, and he always searched for more knowledge to build his ongoing theories. And now when we need creativity more then ever, people use it less and less. We rely more and more on the old ideas. The easy way out.

But there are many steps you can make to start gaining power over your creativity again, because you have not lost it as so many people claim, you just forgot how to use it and got stuck in old ways.

Here are 8 simple and easy to apply rules to live by if you want to gain power over your creativity again.

1. Start a creative library

Everything you do, see, encounter or experience is stored in our brain.

Osborn’s theory about creativity always starts with collecting diverse knowledge. Knowledge, so he claims, is the key. He calls this our raw material, and this raw material is necessary to generate new ideas (remember the Systems you have. The more, raw material you put in your brain the better).

This knowledge really can be anything. Anything is raw material.

And by raw I mean, not structured, not shaped, just in whatever shape or form it came. Not polished or anything. RAW.

2. Create a library of knowledge

According to Osborn, though we depend on this knowledge, this library we have it is crucial not to structure this knowledge. We should not label our experiences and knowledge because then you lose freedom. Then you attach it to the default or any story, it loses its value. When you give it structure, there is no freedom to move everything around, and it is this state of chaos that will help ideation. The chaos in our brain would allow maximizing the creative process.

No rules, just collecting.

By getting multiple knowledge sources to work for you and besides each other, it is very likely that it might ignite a connection. Those connections between your stored information may generate new and remarkable ideas.

Having multiple layers of knowledge also helped the brain of Leonardo Da Vinci. With his understanding of nature, it was possible that he connected this with his technical skills and made the most complicated machines.

3. Do weird things

Besides being a statesman and diplomat, Benjamin Franklin was a well-known American scientist. Franklin also had a very varied knowledge network. He always had several different hobbies and amoungst others created furnishes, was a printer at some point and he even made the first map of the gulf stream: The fast-moving current of warm water in the ocean.

Historian Howard Gruber calls such a diversity of knowledge the network of initiatives.

Start new hobbies, join a club that does not meat your normal standards. Talk to people you never would talk to. See the world with new eyes.

4. Messy Mind

Tim Harford, an economist, describes this unstructured collecting new experiences as a messy mind. An unstructured mind actually may provide you with the welcomed outcome. The situation not being exactly right, be well be the right situation because it forces the brain to come up with more, obscure ideas. It forces creativity out.

Where good ideas are born

Steven Johnson, the author of nine books about science and technology and modern scientist, describes in his work that it is the collection of knowledge that creates opportunities. In Johnson’s book “Where Good Ideas Come from” he speaks about innovation being a slow process that will develop over time by exposure to unrelated notions, unfamiliar ideas and thoughts.

Only with this network of initiatives, we can ideate. This unstructured moment, so Johnson says, the perfect situation for serendipity. It is this moment precisely when multidisciplinary narratives coincide, and new ideas emerge.

Unstructured knowledge is essential.

That much is clear.

​5. Be open to new connections

When we need to be creative, our brain starts to search for connections, for ideas. When we activate our brain with the right input, our brain will most likely come up with more creative ideas; preferably unstructured raw material.

Children and toddlers are very good at making the most amazing connections, finding new usage for products and try out the craziest things. Crazy for us, the adults. The children simply have not learned how to behave and how to follow the rules, as we have. They are not the obedient civilians we are. Their brain is not yet filled with information or how to behave, or all functional fixedness. Their brain gives no signals, yet, about rules. Forget rules, explore, do!

We call children creative. This is because of their ability to think without the restrictions we have as adults.

This, in itself, makes them use their creativity better. Children have not yet learned to diminish 10 x their creativity.

In fact, they are as creative as we are, but they don’t have all the information and the restrictions we adults have, yet.

We could be as creative as children if we were prepared and willing to use our brain as the ultimate creative tool.

6. Do not believe everything our brain tells you

We all have the tendency to believe everything we have stored in our brain to be of value or to be true. Our library of knowledge is our sacred treasure, not to be touched in any form. Our brain creates a connection between the different sources of information and hands them the ideas or solutions whenever we are in need. We believe our brain to give us the best connections.

We tend to believe our brain hands us the right ideas for everything we do and need in life. We believe that whatever information or connections are in our brain, is indeed the best information, and we should use it. Once you accept something to be accurate, this blocks the way for solutions.

If you can stop this, you are on your way to getting better ideas.

Creativity relies on NEW, not old connections.

Your creativity relies on accepting that you know, in fact, nothing.

The old connection you have made in your life are the ideas your brain hands back to you whenever you need a solution or idea.

The old connections are made long ago and could have been with you for years. The more you use them, the more consistent the connection will be inside your brain. And the more difficult it will be to think a new idea, to create a new connection.

Accepting the acquired and stored knowledge as the ultimate truth is making you less creative then you could be. You can imagine that when you already know and accept an existing story, knowledge or solution to a problem, it is tough to not think of this story knowledge or solution when you are challenged with a solution fast.

7. New experiences make way for new paths

But when you experience new things and store new knowledge, you make room for new connections. It will make it easier to let go of the old connections. You will actually free your brain with this new knowledge, and it will able to create new connections. These are the connections you need and want to use your creativity better and on a much higher level.

To gain back the creative power, you need to store more raw material.

You need to explore more and find out more. More information that matters to you, the solution or to your ideation process, more raw material. More of everything, without prejudice and assumptions. Without anything. No rules.

Ever noticed how many people get upset when their routine is messed up by rain, snow or anything unexpected. This requires the brain to make new connections, and it makes you realize the old ones are not sufficient anymore. This could even mean a breakdown moment.

You are at that moment surprised and even stupified with the new situation handed to you. Brain pause moment.

8. Explore everyday

The exploring attitude children have is an investment in their future. They see they do without rules and if we let them without restrictions. This is essential. Many children don’t know how to use this creative skill yet, but they will, and with it, they will hold the future in their hands.

The more you explore, the more raw material you will be able to archive, the better your creative potential. It’s the foundation.

Exploring is best done by just walking out of your front door. Just go walk and whatever you encounter you will archive. Remember to withhold judgement and only store the new information. Keep it unstructured, do nothing with it. Just store it, and it will be the fertile foundation for many creative years to come.

Since creativity is the skill of the future, and this exploration should not be taken lightly.

Start right now.

Maurille

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