10 Steps To Be More Creative (and 10 books that help).

You might have clicked on this article as an aspiring artist wanting to change the world, but I believe that most of you actually want to use creativity as a tool to achieve challenging goals, and/or to live and work differently. That’s where we’ll start.

The academic definition of creativity focuses on the creation of new and useful ideas, but with the above sentence in mind, there are really three parts to becoming more creative.

These are the 3I’s:

• Idea — a new and useful idea or approach that supports a goal
• Implementation — actions aimed at: putting the idea into practice, pivoting, navigating to your goal
• Influence — selling yourself and your idea at every stage towards achieving your goal

Creativity is a process, albeit one that interacts with various intellectual and emotional states, habits and traits in an individual, and policy, culture and systems in the organization.

Being a process, creativity is transferrable between different topics or domains.

Thus, the general strategy I’ll discuss in this article, is building creative skills in a low risk domain to help you be creative in another (higher risk, higher return) area.

Here are 10 steps you can begin to apply straight away to be more creative.

1. Get Motivated

Teresa Amabile from Harvard Business School found that intrinsic (internal) motivation is an important driver of creativity (as compared with external rewards).

The implication is that you will it easier to be creative, and get some initial success, in an area that you care about, compared to a topic that you don’t care about

Why not start creating in an area that you’re already curious or passionate about? Then you can apply those skills and confidence in other areas.

For example, a friend wants to be more creative at work, and I suggested he first write an article about cars (his passion, not his job)!

Even a short article that you write exercises your creative muscles, and is proof that you can be creative. And everyone can write. Frankly, that you complete the exercise in the first place, is a million times more important than finding the right topic, or writing well.

Of course you won’t create anything if you don’t first decide that you’ll try to be creative and stick with it for a bit. Getting used to being creative will take some trial and error, and being motivated will help you persist rather than give up.

If it helps with motivation, research (e.g. Adobe) and skills surveys (e.g. WEF) put creativity and its surrounding traits (flexibility, adaptability, responsiveness, problem solving, innovation) at the center of work, as well as having an important role in supporting happiness, leadership and pro-social behaviors. Don’t be the last to realize the importance of creativity in reaching your potential.

One practical action: write an article or film a short smartphone video on a topic that you are passionate about.

2. Mine Your Memory

Anne Lamott in Bird by Bird asks beginning writers to describe a moment from their schooling/childhood.

Lamott’s exercise lets you experience how strong emotions create vivid memories. Doing these types of exercises gets you used to going inside to look for new ideas, based on yourunique experiences and culture. Unlocking your personality and memories through creative exercises, turns on the spigot to a flow of inspiration.

Your personality and unique experiences are a source of creative differentiation. Being able to put a personal spin on something can turn a commonplace idea, into a special, living one, with greater impact.

When you transform ideas that have great personal emotional resonance, into creative products, it’s likely that your audience will also be moved when they experience those products.

Compare how you’d feel listening to a logical but robotic presentation, or to the same facts delivered emotionally. The emotional delivery is more memorable, and more likely to influence us. It’s often said that we decide based on emotion, and then rationalize with facts. The emotional aspects of creativity allow you to better connect with, and influence others.

In fact, emotion works across the 3I’s. Other examples: In the idea stage we often use empathy to put ourselves in a customer’s shoes when considering a new design. In the implementation stage we use emotion to manage expectations and change, and all along the way we’re influencing others to accept and support the ideas.

One practical action: recall a memory from childhood. Hold the memory in your mind. How do you feel? Most often the easiest accessed memory is a negative one! Try finding three memories where you were really happy.

3. Stop Censoring Yourself (and others)

Julia Cameron has an exercise in The Artist’s Way called the morning pages. It involves writing out a longhand stream of consciousness every morning for weeks (on paper!!!).

This repetition of writing down what’s on your mind gradually wears down your natural tendency to quickly judge your ideas and yourself.

When we stop judging ideas that might initially seem “absurd” or just “different” so quickly, we find that some of these ideas have merit, and lead on to creative breakthroughs.

This doesn’t mean you should suspend all judgment all the time. Rather you should recognize that creativity has a divergent (varying ideas and directions) part, then a convergent (coming together) part.

Practice allows you to feel comfortable in the divergent part, and to stay in it (sometimes for hours, days or even weeks) before coming to the final idea. Some creatives that I know, whose work is truly original, let ideas marinate for months or years before the idea is ready to be implemented. Most of us feel uncomfortable spending more than 10 minutes on creative thinking, then we want a finished idea to take forward. Creative ideas often emerge after a period of incubation, and when not directly working on the problem, so allow breaks between divergent and convergent stages of creativity.

Creativity is often a team sport, more Coltrane and Davis, rather than The Thinker. If you haven’t worked on your own open mindedness, you might also be unintentionally censoring others too, and limiting team performance! To work more creatively in a group setting, you can use words like “What-if” or “Perhaps” to keep the discussion moving forward without censoring yourself or others.

One practical action: Read Cameron’s book (I recommend it), but also take a breath next time you (or someone else) has an idea that you’d be tempted to say “NO!” to. Say “What-If” instead.

Some of the things we censor are our own dreams. Not censoring yourself means opening up the possibility that you might just start working on your dreams rather than purely wishing for them.

4. Stock the Shelves

In Save the Cat! Blake Snyder suggests that before you start writing a screenplay, you first watch several movies in the same genre that you plan to write in.

Most of us have had the experience of going for an idea but “the cupboard is bare”. Stocking the shelves means constantly taking in new material, and applying a critical perspective to what you see and hear, so that it becomes additive to, and active in your memory store, rather than just washing over you.

If you’re new to a field, then stocking the shelves means immersing yourself in the quality ideas in that field. For example, if you want to make movies, not only should you watch the best movies of all time (and read the screenplays) but you should also analyze them too.

That’s what I mean by applying a “critical perspective”, not being negative, but being able to talk about the “what’s and why’s” of the material you’ve looked at. By doing so, you understand the material at a deeper level, can remember it, and can begin to combine and synthesize ideas.

Continuing the movie example, you might critically evaluate a film by talking about how story structure, or shot selection contributes to the emotion felt by the audience.

As you practice being creative, you’ll begin to stock the shelves automatically, and all the time, in your day to day life. You might call this the habit of being present, observant, or in tune with your surroundings.

One practical action: describe the different flavors and characteristics of whatever your creative goal is. For example, even if your goal is career change, read a variety of different case studies on career changes: why did they do it, what different approaches did they take, what obstacles did they encounter, what lessons did they learn?

5. Reframe Reframe Reframe

The Slow Elevator Problem: “Residents of a building in New York complained that the elevators were too slow. Management conducted a study that found that the elevators couldn’t go faster, and nothing could be done. An employee at the building observed that people got annoyed even after only a very short wait time, and concluded that their annoyance was due to boredom (the real problem), not the wait. Mirrors were installed near the elevators and complaints stopped.”

And the story concludes “And that is why you see mirrors in elevator lobbies around the world”.

This classic story neatly illustrates the importance of finding the right problem to solve in the creative process, and how easily we can become sidetracked by incorrect assumptions or imagined constraints that don’t prove to be true.

You can ask questions, of yourself or others, such as “What’s the ultimate objective here?” “What does good look like?” or simply “Why?” to sort through goals, symptoms and problems to find underlying root causes or motivations.

Many of us dream of different, more creative, careers but give up that idea because of a perceived skills, experience or networks gap. Instead of being put of, we can ask “how do I bring part of that dream into my life today, and make it a reality?” There are scores of people with busy jobs that also make movies, volunteer on non-profit boards or write a novel. You make time, and having a creative outlet makes your career work better too. You might find that creative outlet becoming a new career, or a lifelong passion.

One practical action: Think about a problem or goal that you need to be creative in addressing. Ask “Why?” with regards to the problem or goal. When you get the answer ask “Why?” again to that answer, and continue several times. (This is a formal problem solving technique called The 5 Whys)

6. Practice Makes…Confident

“What we’ve found is that we don’t have to generate creativity from scratch. We just need to help people rediscover what they already have: the capacity to imagine — or build upon — new-to-the-world ideas. But the real value of creativity doesn’t emerge until you are brave enough to act on those ideas. That combination of thought and action defines creative confidence: the ability to come up with new ideas and the courage to try them out.” Creative Confidence — Tom and David Kelley

The central idea in Creative Confidence, building on the work on self-efficacy by psychologist Albert Bandura, is that the process of solving problems of increasing incremental difficulty in an area, leads to a generalized confidence in solving problems in any area.

I’ve seen and experienced this amazing dynamic myself many times. For example, in creative seminars I’ve run, we do a practical exercise.

The participants sit in a circle, and I hand one of them a small but empty cardboard box. Their job for each turn is to come up with an alternative use for the box, say what it is, then pass the box on to the next participant. In a variation of this exercise, I stand up the front with the box and ask participants to individually brainstorm and write down their ideas for alternative uses without calling them out.

The “writing down” variation of this exercise (essentially a Torrance test) demonstrates that some people are more creative than others in terms of number of ideas (a.k.a. creative fluency) and the number of categories of different types of uses for the box (a.k.a. creative flexibility). If I ask for volunteers to share ideas at the end, the creative ones call out theirs, and the “less creative” ones perhaps feel a bit dejected.

In the “calling out” version of this exercise, a really interesting thing happens, some people find it difficult to generate ideas in the first round, but on the second time around the circle the get into the spirit of things, and begin to come up with their own unique ideas. This short exercise of about 5 minutes has made them more creative! How we see ourselves, and how we think others see us, can severely limit, or completely unlock our creativity.

Taking on a series of what might seem minor creative challenges at home (or other low risk environment), for example, could help you tackle much larger problems at work (typically a higher risk environment).

The action I recommended in Step 1 about writing/filming is also a creative confidence exercise. Yet many of you won’t do the exercise. Your logical brain will be saying “what does writing an article have to do with changing careers?”. In fact, you don’t know what you don’t know as the expression goes. Small creative actions e.g. learning to sketch, or to sing in a group, or writing an article can have disproportionately larger positive results that you simply can’t predict.

One practical action: From Creative Confidence, design the perfect wallet for yourself. What would it look like (color, materials), and what functionality (folding sections, card slots etc.) would it have.

7. Don’t Stop ’til You Get Enough

One of the many things I took away from the excellent Pixar Khan Academy course on storytelling was that it’s often easier to come up with 100 ideas than 1 idea.

Quality often begins with quantity.

The first idea is often not the best idea.

“If you want a good idea, start with a lot of ideas” — Nobel Laureate Linus Pauling.

Our brains tend to come up with familiar ideas first, and only after those have been exhausted do the original ideas emerge. Not only that, but if you try to do divergent thinking and convergent thinking (see above) at the same time you can get stuck, and have zero ideas.

Another version of this “waiting for one perfect idea” problem can inhibit change and growth in life too. Instead of taking action, we tread water refining an idea.

When you find yourself treading water, the way out is just to pick the best idea, and try to take one or two small (reversible or low-risk) steps to implement that. You’ll quickly find out if you are on track or not, and from your new perspective, new ideas will emerge that you couldn’t see before.

One practical action: pick one particularly sticky problem or goal you have. Try to come up with 100 ideas on how to solve the problem or achieve the outcome you want from that goal. Don’t stop until you have 100 ideas.

8. Improve

Twyla Tharp says in The Creative Habit “You double your intensity with skill”.

Even if you have a good idea, then the work of being more creative is not done until you have a phenomenal idea, that is also well executed and garners the right impact with your audience.

You increase your creativity by working on skills across the 3I’s (idea, implementation, influence). A commitment to lifelong learning is a way to increase your creativity.

Perhaps the hardest lesson I’ve learned from creative work is that almost any idea, no matter how cool or genius it might initially seem, is not very good at the start.

It needs to be sharpened and made more original. Too many of us play small, when we should be aiming for a much bigger vision. We get disillusioned when we don’t produce genius work the moment we start trying to be creative. We conclude that we lack talent. In fact, most often we just don’t yet understand the amount of work that really goes into bringing a creative idea to life.

When you’re starting out, it’s important to just “make a thing” so that you know you can. But if you want to “Turn Pro” with your creativity, just being able to do something isn’t enough. You need to build relevant technical and creative skills a.k.a. “craft building”, and strive to be better every time.

Improvement is sometimes painful, and can only come from exposing your ideas to others.

Part of being more creative therefore is the ability to externalize and organize your ideas, so that others can understand them, and give improvement feedback.

People often say that to improve we should network, but that’s not quite it. I find that the best networking comes from earnestly sharing the creative process with others, getting and receiving feedback, mentoring and being mentored. Give, and then take.

One practical action: pick a creative idea that you’ve been thinking of, and tell that idea to someone else and ask for feedback. Try to find someone objective that doesn’t have any stakes in you or the idea. I often pitch ideas to people I bump into at coffee shops.

9. Get Organized

“While many of us spend too much energy searching for the next great idea, my research shows that we would be better served by developing the capacity to make ideas happen — a capacity that endures over time.” Making Ideas Happen — Scott Belsky

A surprising insight from my guests on the Total Life Complete podcast (that backs up Belsky’s statement) is how much truly creative people rely on detailed to-do lists!

They ship, and they have a process to ensure all of their important projects take regular (even if micro) steps forward. This is possible because what is needed in terms of actions for each project is clear.

For example, I interviewed Artist and Professional Ice Skater (and to-do list advocate), Jennifer Wester, in September 2017 for the podcast. One of her action items was “design a tool so that I can skate on my hands”. By May of the following year she’d not only built the tool, but incorporated it into her performance Breaking Shadows, as part of the Dallas Symphony Orchestra’s Soluna festival. You can tell a wisher from a doer, by asking about their to do lists. What’s on yours?

The creative process is something that actually runs all the time. It’s an ongoing habit, not just the 20 minutes you set aside to “be creative”. An idea can, and often does, pop up at any time. You need a process to capture and prioritize ideas, and manage the pipeline through every stage to bring your idea into the world.

A basic organizational process involves writing down ideas. For example, I have an electronic backed up file for movie ideas, characters and dialogue. I have another for song lyrics/lines and other audio files for melodies. I have a file for customer observations and business ideas, and so on. And yes, I have some crazy items on my to do list too, like “buy cowboy hat that fits on a pencil” (done) and “research framing and composition for famous love scenes”, for a movie short I’m working on.

As Belsky suggests, writing stuff down alone is not enough. You also need a process to revisit your ideas, to prioritize them, and to identify action items, and track your execution of those action items.

It’s a bit hackneyed but the phrase “A goal is a dream with a deadline” is relevant here. It is a life defining moment when you realize that you can set goals for your wildest dreams, with the earnest expectation that you’ll reach them. Perhaps you want to start a business, or write a book, or make a movie and play a role in it. All of those dreams are “easily” done, once you can inject some creativity, adopt a problem-solving mindset and, importantly, bring to bear your already significant organizational skills, people of the Internet.

What I want for you is that improving your creativity will not only deliver superficial goals like making more money, but creativity will allow you to chase down your wildest dreams, and take actions to make them happen.

One practical action: create a project file. Start an electronic document and in it, list out all of your dreams and crazy ideas. Pick the most appealing idea and create a separate folder for that idea. Create a new electronic document in that folder. For the idea list out what you hope to achieve by pursuing the idea and why. If you had to explain to someone else how to do your goal, what are the first five practical steps you would suggest they do? Write those steps down. Now you have a project. Next time you bump into someone at a coffee shop, why not discuss your project with them? (I love hearing about people’s personal projects, rather than smalltalk).

10. Sell Yourself

“Perennial sellers are made by indefatigable artists who…take control of their own fate. Not simply as artists, but as makers and managers” — Perennial Seller, Ryan Holiday

The final of the 3I’s I talked about earlier is influence. Speaking up might be the thing that boosts your creativity the most in practical terms.

You’ve probably experienced that in business meetings, a person will simply restate what has just been said by someone else, and will get credit for the idea. To get ahead you often need to spend as much time or more selling your ideas and yourself, as you do actually doing the initial creative part.

Luckily, if you’re working in an area you’re passionate about, that passion will spill across into your conversations with others, even if they are not passionate about the topic (and you keep what you’re sharing succinct and interesting).

One practical action: as you go through your day, practice talking about the why of your idea, not just what it is. What’s cool about it? What’s in it for the person you’re speaking to? What have your team/you learned that make you the right ones to take this idea forward?

Conclusion

The way into increased creativity starts with your personal why, finding motivation inside yourself to pursue a creative path that inevitably involves some learning and trial and error, and with doing seemingly simple but profound actions such as the ones above. Being creative doesn’t mean pretending to be someone else, quite the opposite. Being more creative means being more authentic, self-aware and vulnerable. The payoff is not only new ideas, and progress at work, but the ability to pursue your dreams and heartfelt goals, and live with a sense of possibility.

* * *

“[W]ho you are now and who you will be in five years depends on what books you read and which people you meet” — Twyla Tharp

Here are 10 creative books worth your time:

1. The Artist’s Way — Julia Cameron

2. Creative Confidence — Tom and David Kelley

3. Steal Like an Artist — Austin Kleon

4. The War of Art — Steven Pressfield

5. The Creative Habit — Twyla Tharp

6. Bird by Bird — Anne Lamott

7. Making Ideas Happen — Scott Belsky

8. Perennial Seller — Ryan Holiday

9. The Art of Thought — Graham Wallas

10. Applied Imagination — Alex Osborn

Brett is a filmmaker, entrepreneur, coach, and advisor to individuals and organizations.