For a More Creative Brain, Follow These 5 Steps

Nearly all great ideas follow a similar creative process. Understanding this is important because creative thinking is one of the most useful skills you can possess. Nearly every problem you face in work and in life can benefit from innovative solutions, lateral thinking, and creative ideas. Anyone can learn to be creative by using these five steps.

Uncovering your creative genius requires courage and tons of practice.

Creative thinking is not about generating something new from a blank slate, but rather about taking what is already present and combining those bits and pieces in a way that has not been done previously.

Most important, 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

• learning specific material directly related to your task and
• learning general material by becoming fascinated with a wide range of concepts.

Thoroughly work over the materials in your mind. During this stage, you examine what you have learned by looking at the facts from different angles and experimenting with fitting various ideas together.

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

Let your idea return to 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.

Shape and develop your idea based on feedback. 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.

“Creativity itself doesn't care at all about results - the only thing it craves is the process. Learn to love the process and let whatever happens next happen, without fussing too much about it. Work like a monk, or a mule, or some other representative metaphor for diligence. Love the work. Destiny will do what it wants with you, regardless.”

-Elizabeth Gilbert