I love a creative process, the curiosity that precedes any starting point for new ideas…it’s the fun part of anything for me! 

A new study into the 14 key components of creativity made really interesting reading this morning – summarised below and simplified so you can get quick wins from it…

1. Don’t wait for ideas to come

seek them out and then show the persistence needed to take them past the roadblocks along the way.

2. Get comfortable with uncertainty

Creativity is at its best when you are ok with not knowing what will happen next. It NEEDS you to do things outside of your normal routine – but you have to be comfortable with this so it can happen.

3. Hone your knowledge

Keep learning and increasing your knowledge and hone your skills, it’s only then that you will see the gaps, the problems and the needs that you can start to design solutions for.

4. Be Smart

You don’t need to be a genius to come up with creative solutions or new ideas but apparently you do need to have ‘good intellect’ – bring on the Omega-3!!

5. Have a Target in Mind

Your creative juices will start to kick in more if you have an end result in mind, it gets the old RAS on the case and you are more likely to get the result you want.

6. Ask for more Autonomy

If you work for yourself this is already a bonus for your creativity – it works better when you have the freedom and independence to have autonomy over your actions. If you want to be creative at work and this is hard to do, find the time to get some space where your mind is free to wander. 

7. Get your Emotions Involved!

The more emotionally invested you are (so the more passionate you feel about something) the better the results in terms of new ideas and thoughts.

8. Be Original

Easier said than done but being creative is all about finding new ways of connecting things, new links, new thoughts, ideas, products etc. Take two things that you believe have zero in common or linking them and find a way to bring them together if you want to start exercising that originality within you.

9. Make Progress

In other words, small steps count!! As long as there is movement and development and evolution there is creativity happening.

10. Social Interaction

Yup, without interacting with the wider world our creativity stalls…positive and persuasive interaction is apparently the best kind for creativity.

11. Intuition is REAL

Yes indeed, your subconscious is hard at work all the time and one of the key components of pulling those original ideas from your head is not to ‘pull’ at all…but to distract yourself and then listen to the little insights that pop into your mind.

12. But Evaluate Too

The key here is to have a sensible hat on for a little bit and use your reasoning to make a decision – the most important part of that? Making the decision, any decision is better that getting stuck in weighing up the options is you want to remain creative.

13. Add Value to the World

When people look at what you have done, or achieved and they have the thought ‘hmm, that’s beyond what most people would ha e done’ (in a good way) and they see it has had a useful impact – then creativity is working for high value use and is at its peak.

And the final one…

14. Don’t Hold Back!

You can’t be creative when you are being all judgemental about your ideas…get them out onto a piece of paper, no matter how silly they seem to you right now (no one is looking). If you do anything, practise this and watch your creativity soar!!