What is Creativity?

Let's define creativity.

The creative process is the act of making new connections between old ideas or recognizing relationships between concepts. 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.

While being creative isn't easy, nearly all great ideas follow a similar creative process. In 1940, an advertising executive named James Webb Young published a short guide titled, A Technique for Producing Ideas.

Young believed the process of creative connection always occurred in five steps.

The Creative Process

Gather new material:- At first, you learn. During this stage, you focus on 1) learning specific material directly related to your task and 2) 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 do something else that excites you and energizes you.

Let your idea return to you:-At 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.

How to Be Creative

Step 1: Permit yourself to create junk.

In any creative endeavor, you have to permit yourself to create junk. There is no way around it. Sometimes you have to write 4 terrible pages to discover that you wrote one good sentence in the second paragraph of the third page.

Creating something useful and compelling is like being a gold miner. You have to sift through pounds of dirt and rock and silt to find a speck of gold in the middle of it all. Bits and pieces of genius will find their way to you if you permit yourself to let the muse flow.

Step 2: Create a schedule.

No single act will uncover more creative genius than forcing yourself to create consistently. Practicing your craft over and over is the only way to become decent at it. The person who sits around theorizing about what a best-selling book looks like will never write it. Meanwhile, the writer who shows up every day and puts their butt in the chair and their hands on the keyboard is learning how to do the work.

If you want to do your best creative work, then don't leave it up to choice. Don't wake up in the morning and think, “I hope I feel inspired to create something today.” It would help if you took the decision-making out of it. Set a schedule for your work. Genius arrives when you show up enough times to get the average ideas out of the way.

Step 3: Finish something

Finish something. Anything. Stop researching, planning, and preparing to do the work and do the work. It doesn't matter how good or how bad it is. You don't need to set the world on fire with your first try. You need to prove to yourself that you have what it takes to produce something.

There are no artists, athletes, entrepreneurs, or scientists who became great by half-finishing their work. Stop debating what you should make and make something.

Step 4: Stop judging your own work.

Everyone struggles to create great art. Even great artists.

Anyone who creates something consistently will begin to judge their own work. I write new articles every Monday and Thursday. After sticking to that publishing schedule for three months, I began to judge everything I created. I was convinced that I had gone through every decent idea I had available. My most popular article came 8 months later.

It is natural to judge your work. It is natural to feel disappointed that your creation isn't as wonderful as you hoped it would be or that you're not getting any better at your craft. But the key is not to let your discontent prevent you from continuing to do the work.

You have to practice enough self-compassion not to let self-judgment take over. Sure, you care about your work but don't get so serious about it that you can't laugh off your mistakes and continue to produce the thing you love. Don't let judgment prevent delivery.

Step 5: Hold yourself accountable.

Share your work publicly. It will hold you accountable for creating your best work. It will provide feedback for doing better work. And when you see others connect with what you create, it will inspire you and make you care more.

Sometimes sharing your work means you have to deal with haters and critics. But more often than not, the only thing that happens is that you rally the people who believe the same things you believe, are excited about the same things you are excited about, or who support the work that you believe in — who wouldn't want that?

The world needs people who put creative work out into the world. What seems simple to you is often brilliant to someone else. But you'll never know that unless you choose to share.

Best Creativity Books

The War of Art by Steven Pressfield

The Creative Habit by Twyla Tharp

The Art of Possibility by Benjamin Zander and Rosamund Stone Zander

Ignore Everybody: And 39 Other Keys to Creativity by Hugh MacLeod