For a More Creative Brain, Follow These 5 Steps

The ability to generate new combinations hinges upon your ability to see the relationships between concepts. If you can form a new link between two old ideas, you have done something creative.

At first, you learn. During this stage, you focus on

1) Learning specific material directly related to your task and

2) Learning available material by becoming fascinated with a wide range of concepts.

During this stage, you examine what you have learned by looking at the facts from different angles and experimenting with fitting various ideas together.

Next, you put the problem completely out of your mind and go do something else that excites you and energizes you.

At some point, but only after you have stopped thinking about it, your idea will come back to you with a flash of insight and renewed energy.

For any idea to succeed, you must release it out into the world, submit it to criticism, and adapt it as needed.

Being creative isn't about being the first (or only) person to think of an idea. More often, creativity is about connecting ideas.