1.
Curiosity
I’ve written previously on the topic of curiosity because I’m convinced that it is an essential skill to
build as a blogger. Learning to ask ‘why’, ‘what if’ and ‘I wonder…’ are great
questions to build into your life if you want to be a more creative person.
2.
Seeing Problems as Interesting and Acceptable
One of the problems of the Western mindset is that we often
see problems or obstacles in life as unacceptable parts of life. We avoid pain
or suppress it when it comes and in doing so don’t often see and feel symptoms
that are there to tell us something important. Creative people see problems as
a natural and normal part of life – in fact they often have a fascination with
problems and are drawn to them.
3.
Confronting Challenge
Many of the most creative ideas
through out history have come from people facing a challenge or crisis and
rather than running from it asking ‘how can I overcome this’?
4.
Constructive Discontent
Creative people often have an acute
awareness of what’s wrong with the world around them – however they are
constructive about this awareness and won’t allow themselves to get bogged down
in grumbling about it – they take their discontent and let it be a motivation
to doing something constructive.
5.
Optimism
Creative people generally have a deeply held belief that
most (if not all) problems can be solved. No challenge is too big to be
overcome and no problem cannot be solved (this doesn’t mean they’re always
happy or never depressed – but they don’t generally get stumped by a
challenge).
6.
Suspending Judgment
The ability to hold off on judging
or critiquing an idea is important in the process of creativity. Often great
ideas start as crazy ones – if critique is applied too early the idea will be
killed and never developed into something useful and useable. (note – this
doesn’t mean there is never a time for critique or judgement in the creative
process – it’s actually key – but there is a time and place for it).
7.
Seeing Hurdles as leading to improvements and solutions
This relates to some of the above – but by ‘hurdles’ I mean
problems and mistakes in the creative process itself. Sometimes it’s on the
journey of developing an idea that the real magic happens and it’s often out of
the little problems or mistakes that the idea is actually improved.
8.
Perseverance
Creative people who actually see
their ideas come to fruition have the ability to stick with their ideas and see
them through – even when the going gets tough. This is what sets apart the
great from the good in this whole sphere. Stick-ability is key.
9.
Flexible Imagination
I love watching a truly creative person at work when they’re
‘on fire’. They have this amazing ability to see a problem or challenge and
it’s many potential solutions simultaneously and they have an intuitive knack
at being able to bring previously disconnected ideas together in flashes of
brilliance that seem so simple – yet which are so impossible to dream up for
the average person.
Postingan
