An endless flow of fantastic ideas: Part 2

My income depends on producing ideas on-call and – as I hope will soon become obvious – I leave nothing to chance.  This post is the second in a series where I will be sharing with you some of the most useful strategies, tactics, tools and techniques that I rely on everyday to ensure an unstoppable stream of fresh ideas.

Reference: for those who missed Part 1: Enrich your creative inputs

Article Version: 1.1, 22nd December 2009

Warning: what follows is based on one person’s experience, reported anecdotally.

Part 2: Strengthen your creative muscles

Your brain is an incredible resource, poised to serve you in extraordinary ways.  No matter what level of creative performance it’s currently working at, there is always another performance level to step up to – especially if you put effort into strengthening your creative ‘muscles’.  Here’s how:

1. Change your mind-set

A powerful mind-set that will help boost your creativity is to separate yourself from your brain. You are not your brain.  Your brain is an organ that is at your disposal – but it’s not you.

My purpose here is no to get into a protracted existentialist debate, just a more resourceful way of thinking.  With this mind-set, it’s much easier to implement the following steps.

2. Become a brain mechanic

Now that you are not in your brain, you can start working on your brain.  It’s a bio-computer of unfathomed potential, waiting for you to feed it, train it, tune it into peak performance.

Like any thoroughbred of limitless ability, it’s important to expect more out of it and be constantly on the look out for tools, techniques and information that can enhance its performance.

3. Upgrade your mental software

Your level of creative performance will depend on the beliefs you have programmed into your brain.  Limiting beliefs will produce limiting results.  The good news is that you can choose a new set of beliefs – ones that help you get the most out of your brain.

Think of it as upgrading the software by installing ideas-boosting beliefs.

Examples of useful beliefs:

• There’s no shortage of great ideas.
• My next brilliant idea is just a heart beat away.
• The more ideas I come up with, the more I can come up with.
• The more ideas I come up with, the better they get.
• The more ideas I give away, the better the ideas are that will come my way.

4. Use creativity-enhancing questions

Creative minds respond well to good questions.  The better the questions, the better the solutions and ideas that are triggered.

Get into the habit of asking yourself and those around you well-formed questions throughout the day.

Examples:

• What are the unmet needs of this person, group or organization?
• What’s not right yet?  Why?
• What are the issues, pressures and problems?
• What’s the underlying cause of this problem?
• What’s the deeper need behind the expressed need?
• What’s a way of solving this that is fast, efficient and inexpensive?

5. Magnify your why

Necessity is the mother of invention. The more strong and compelling reasons you have driving your creativity, the more productive you will be.

Ask yourself questions that will help you source stacks of motivating reasons why.

For example:

Why must I get good at generating ideas?

• Because ideas are a critical source of income.
• Because great ideas affect key outcomes.
• Because the more you create ideas, the better you get at it.
• Because a content-based economy increasingly relies on ideas.
• Because to be able to create excellent ideas quickly increases your value.

6. Silence the critical inner voice

There’s a little voice that shows up in your mind from time to time, that seems to love destroying the creative process.  It’s not the constructive voice of reason and sound judgment – more like that of a precocious child that screams unfounded negativity at every opportunity.  Cries of ‘That’s a crappy idea!’, ‘You’ll never come up with a good idea.’, ‘All your ideas are rubbish.’ or similar, sabotage your creativity and need to be silenced.

To minimize it, first become aware of it.  Notice it’s there and avoid paying attention to it.  This will quickly diminish its power.  After a while, it will simply disappear.

7. Stop trying to create ideas

The generation of ideas was never meant to be a difficult process, laden with burden and struggle.

Your brain is a phenomenal bio-computer.  If you’ve fed it a rich diet of high quality inputs, trust the creative process and get out of its way.

Relax and let go of the need to get an answer.  Let your brain get on with what it does so well – creating fantastic ideas.

8. Reverse engineer your success strategy

What if your brain had a set of circumstances that were optimal for its fast and effective generation of fantastic ideas?  You would certainly want to know what they were, wouldn’t you?

Start paying attention to the specific circumstances surrounding your most productive creative sessions.

For example:

• What day/time of day?
• Location e.g. at your desk or outside?
• Atmosphere: background noise or quiet?
• Using a computer and/or pad and pencil?
• Triggering event e.g. phone call or reading something?
• How were you feeling? etc

The more you pay attention to your creativity success strategy, the more you will discover.  Use this information to duplicate the conditions whenever you want more great ideas.

9.Change your body position

If you want to change the way you think, change the way you move your body.  Anything from going for a walk, to running, hopping, skipping or dancing.

For example, I’m a big fan of yoga as a method of changing mental perspective by changing body position.  There are some excellent postures including balances, headstands and spinal twists – any of which work as a trigger for different thinking.

10. Boot-camp your brain

To get the very best out of your brain’s creative potential, it’s important to get it mentally fit – and keep it that way.

There are many ways to sharpen your mind including:

• Crosswords – especially cryptic crosswords;
• Number and logic puzzles e.g. Sudoku;
• Reading – especially more challenging texts e.g. Classics;
• Learning things e.g. foreign languages, a new skill or studying a new subject.

Like all ‘exercise’ programs, for it to succeed it needs to be interesting, challenging and convenient enough to do regularly.

Share your ideas and experience

• What would you add to this list?

• What proportion of your creative potential would you say that you currently use?

• What do you do to strengthen your creative muscles?

More RADSMARTS

Get a 1-minute business boost by watching BLACK CHAIR Business Mentoring TV

Share your opinion by commenting on an ILLUSTRATED discussion

Stay inspired, motivated and right up-to-date by subscribing to RADSMARTS