How To Be More Creative
December 22, 2008
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Is being creative something that can be taught? That’s a question without a simple yes or no answer. The more I experience in life and grow as an artist and writer the more I try and put into concrete terms what conditions are necessary for the best moments of clarity and inspiration. Creativity may not be able to be taught directly, but what I am getting better at is frequently aligning the circumstances of life which foster the greatest chances for true creative expression.
Pushing yourself for greater productivity in your art or your profession is great and you shouldn’t stop that – but perhaps equally important is putting your life on a path of being a true creative to achieve absolutely unique results. There isn’t nearly as much value in doing things slightly different than have already been done versus doing things which are truly unique to you. I’d like to share a few philosophies on life I have that may help you in producing the most creative results.
Ruthlessly limit your selection of tools to only the most vital
I have found time and time again that the more limited your set of tools is, the more creative the output will be. Having a limited set of vital tools forces creativity and really challenges you to use what you have to produce the desired results. As a byproduct, you’ll get incredibly good with that small set of tools and refine your use of them to a point you can literally do anything you like with them. You’ll be far sharper than someone who merely dabbles with a larger set of tools.
Don’t listen to feedback, keep following your own path
If you are pursuing art for the sake of art, you shouldn’t listen to feedback from others. The problem with asking for feedback is invariably the feedback will be given infused with that person’s preconceived notions of what art should be. And, there is no wrong answer with art, not if you are doing it for yourself. Others will unconsciously push your art in a direction that they see as best. This is done with good intentions, however it is wrong because it actually hurts your internal creativity. Now this is different than sharing your work – by all means share, but I don’t think listening to feedback is a good decision if you want to truly find your own path of creative self-expression. For a long time, I actively asked and listened to feedback on my own art, but now when I share I neither ask nor listen for feedback and I am producing art that I personally enjoy even more. It has really brought the heart back into it for me. I’m also not sharing most of it with the world right now, but I will one day.
Having a routine is actually not a bad thing
A lot of people talk about the negativity of having a routine for creativity. I would argue just the opposite – having a routine forces creativity. Routines are positive if they reinforce a healthy, creative consciousness and negative if they destroy that. While breaking your routine once in awhile to force new ways of thinking is good, what if growing/learning/experiencing new things was built into your routine as a natural. It might not be such a bad thing. The people who get stuck in a monotonous existence and speak negatively about routine have simply not developed a routine that puts them on a path of internal growth.
Don’t try and be right
Some of my best days producing creative material is when I stopped caring if I would produce something which was incorrect. Don’t worry about being right or wrong – just go for it. Your natural output uninhibited by concern for creating something correct or incorrect will always produce creative results. It is unfortunate that institutional education prides itself on being one of those two things. This yes or no programming occurs at a massive detriment to the creativity of modern society. There are limitless paths to achieve creative success. You have to free yourself of this small minded, institutionalized thinking if you want to truly produce something creative.
Imperfection is beautiful
My favorite art is art that is imperfect. Imperfection is human, and sometimes the most creative artists leave mistakes unfixed on purpose. Nature itself is beautifully imperfect. Many try to be so perfect that they scrub away what made their work special in the first place. I have seen this happen to some artists over the years – they become too conscious of their productions. In a world saturated by overproduced, unnaturally perfect, and clean – the unpolished is the most creative and in many cases most inspirational.
Ignore trends
If you want to be truly creative, you absolutely must ignore trends. Block them out – pay zero attention to them. Trends are the polar opposite of creativity. In many forms of art (especially music) the masses of artists are following whatever the hot trends set forth are. Then there is the other, smaller group of artists that are pursuing their own path and not really paying attention to external trends in their form of art of choice. There is certainly more money, fame and instant notoriety for following trends, but most of what is popular is hardly creative. If you want to make something truly unique trends are irrelevant. Looking inside yourself is where you will discover a greater wealth of creativity than available in any hot trend.
Spend a lot of time alone
Personally I love my alone time. When not working, I spend a majority of my time reading, writing music and words, watching things like TED presentations, studying sociology and philosophy, reading blogs, experiencing non-popular genres of music/forms art, and essentially pursuing a path of intellectual curiosity. There’s a rare glimpse into my life for you (I don’t do that often here) – but I’m trying to prove a point. It’s not that I am anti-social, I just find my creativity really starts to open up when I am removed from others and able to have quiet focus for my words or music. It is then and only then I am able to let go and achieve results that I’m happy with.
Don’t watch TV, don’t listen to the radio, remove the vapid elements of popular culture from your life
These things aren’t bad for you in moderation – but I do not believe truly creative individuals spend more than a fleeting amount of time with them. They are great at normalizing your thoughts with the rest of society, and do not foster true internal creativity. Realize everything that you experience, every piece of content you consume plays a role in shaping your personality, even if at a subconscious level. It is all influence one way or another. You are in many ways a product of your experiences and stimulus. In one sentence, your creative output can be thought of simply as a personal interpretation of external stimulus. The best part about this is you get to control the input.
Don’t try and fit into a genre
Actively trying to fit your art or work into a genre is severly limiting and a detriment to its quality, if creativity is desired. Don’t try and write for a genre, don’t try to follow trends within a genre, in fact don’t even consider genre when working. Labeling it in a genre is a necessary evil for people to be able to find your work, and you will probably have to do this – but it shouldn’t be something that crosses your mind when trying to work. Genres, styles and methods don’t matter for creativity and originality.
Ignore the past
Want to be really creative or original? Ignore or forget the past, ignore what the world has created up until this point. Sometimes considering the past will make you place a sort of unconscious time stamp on a style. That’s the antithesis of creativity and originality. Create things from within yourself that don’t draw inspiration from what has come previously or even consider it and you’ll be on a path to creative output.
Conclusion
In a world over-saturated with ideas and content, learning how to be more creative is vital for producing absolutely unique results. Spending time to carefully craft a life that inspires your best, most creative output leads to greater levels of inspiration and success in everything you do. It also leads to greater levels of happiness and internal motivation. The more I experience, the clearer I see creativity is not like a lightning strike, but more like something which manifests itself inside those who learn to foster it and create the right conditions for it to prosper.
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Yael K. Miller replied | Dec 22, 2008 (2 comments)
I appreciate you setting out in words very clearly your views on creativity. I disagree on a number of points.
I agree that I don’t believe creativity can be taught. “Creativity” like most terms in the English language has layers of meaning. I think “creativity” is term we use for people who look at the world in a certain way. Who look at the world and new thoughts are “created” in their heads. But the ability to think new thoughts can be nurtured. The more you read, the more you add to a database of information your “creativity” uses to make news thoughts.
On to the disagreements. I’m not an artist, I’m a writer (although I started young in art classes and one day will go back)so perhaps that’s why I look at creativity differently.
“Don’t listen to feedback” is one of the cardinal sins of being a writer. As writers, we fall love in love with our own characters, scenes, lines of dialogue, etc. but frequently those items that we love have no place in the story we are telling. We need an outside voice to tell us “cut it.” Of course, “feedback” or “notes” (as it’s called in the entertainment industry) can destroy what story we’re trying to tell. Here’s an example of a so funny, cause it’s true skit of a notes meeting: http://twurl.nl/pi07k5 In that case, I agree “don’t listen to feedback.”
“Ignore trends” is another toughie. If you want to sell your work, you usually have to follow a trend. If the studios are buying scripts about crazy lawyers you should have a script about crazy lawyers. Then it reaches a point where no one is buying that trend anymore so your script about crazy lawyers is not that useful. And you do always need an example of original work for when they ask for it.
Then there’s another kind of trend that you can’t ignore: design. If someone looks at your website and thinks “that’s very Web 1.0″ vs Web 2.0, they’re (possibly) talking about a design aesthetic. CSS come along and opened the possibilities what web design can do. I don’t think you’re saying everyone should stick with HTML because CSS is a “trend.”
“Don’t try and fit into a genre” is what you as a writer would like to do but the publishers usually say it’s this genre or that. If you’re really, really lucky the publisher decides your work is straight-up fiction even when it’s not. Random House decided that Dan Brown’s “Da Vinci Code” would be labeled as “fiction” even though I think it really is more a “scifi/fantasy.” If it was labeled scifi/fantasy I doubt it would have sold near as many copies. That’s not to say it’s impossible (ignoring Harry Potter as an outlier), there are scifi/fantasy books that end up NY Times Bestsellers and International Bestsellers. You just don’t get covered by the mainstream press.
With this long a comment, it really feels like it needs a concluding statement, but I was never too do at those, so… In conclusion, Adam, this was a great post (no lie).
Mario Sanchez Carrion replied | Dec 23, 2008 (23 comments)
Hi Adam:
Great post, as usual. I believe that most of us are born creative (just watch a 2 year old play) and then society conditions us to suppress that creativity. Some technical disciplines teach us that there is only one right answer to any given problem. Once you internalize that, you stop seeing the world as shades of gray, but either black or white instead, dismissing the creative process as a waste of time.
Corporate life can be a creativity-killer too. When doing what your boss says, playing it safe to avoid making mistakes, and trying to be always politically correct are sure ways to thwart creativity.
The best tip I have in order to jump start your creativity is to do things that you like. When you discover a passion for something, your creativity immediately comes to life. For example, when you’re doing something you like, even seemingly unrelated events get you thinking along the lines of: how can I apply this to my passion, how does this relate to what I’m doing, etc.
On the other hand, it’s difficult to be creative when you’re doing something that you don’t like.
Detrus replied | Dec 24, 2008 (2 comments)
What you’re describing as creativity is a pretty vague concept. I wish we would have more concrete definitions of our brain patterns. Creativity is just a buzzword that gets used in certain art related circles. It defines about as much as the word headache.
As a design student I heard a lot of this word. There were certain types of advertisements we were shown that were supposedly creative. These were very witty ads, they were unexpected and got into books of witty ads.
I came up with 2-3 of these so called creative ideas during the whole time I was in college. They were like those ideas you see on adbusters.org, and on the same topic. I didn’t put much thought into them, for one idea my brain magically connected Egyptian hieroglyphs with corporate logos (a lot like the adbusters american flag with logos) and presto! My teacher was impressed along with the students.
Would I come up with this idea if I didn’t see countless witty ads and adbusters flag, but only saw hieroglyphs and corporate logos? Not likely.
Ultimately this idea is a gimmick, a distraction. It is as small and useless as the ideas that inspired it. It has a much better chance of inspiring another gimmick than a useful idea.
If you could stimulate an artist’s brain in a way that would make it a creative idea factory, most of those ideas would make some art teachers happy, fill a gallery and sell some junk. This is assuming the artist is fixated on art and nothing else, unlike Leonardo DaVinci. Most artists are not like him.
If the brain is not filled with deeply understood, detailed knowledge about the world, perhaps history or science, then it will act on the limited knowledge it does have. Those actions won’t change the world even if they receive worldwide attention.
This is why the world is indifferent to the so called creatives. Nobody appreciates their efforts, just as nobody appreciates the efforts of other professions that can be performed with mental deficiencies.
If you want to make the part of the brain you use most more effective, the best approach is to build up your brain’s other strengths. It’s pointless to close up, get in moods and enjoy the fragile creative experience.
Michael replied | Jul 26, 2009 (1 comment)
I just want to say great post! I learned a few things
bobroth replied | Aug 26, 2009 (1 comment)
I disagree with nearly every point that you make, but that is what creativity is all about. There is no perfect equation to creativity because we’re all unique in what we’ve seen, learned, done and we’re inspired by so many different things: a child, a candy bar wrapper in the gutter, the tail lights of a plane en route towards a waxing moon, a darkening sky during the normal light of morning, something silly that Jon Stewart said, the way your lover looks when she’s asleep and calm… I could go on forever…
Point is, screw the 10 rules and do your own thang until you figure out what works for you.
I debate your post, point by point, on my blog:
http://bigbadbobby.blogspot.com/2009/08/checking-creative-pulse.html