The Power of Creativity

Stanley Mason is the personification of what we all think an inventor should be. He is part eccentric, part dreamer, and part workaholic. When he gets an idea, he pursues it—not just in his mind, but first on paper and then in tangible form. He can spend hours, days, or weeks researching for just the right screw, hinge, or spring that will make his invention work perfectly. This is how inventors work.

He also has the ability to get lost—to follow his idea down paths that others may deem futile or tangential. When he wanders down these paths, he often comes out with solutions that even he could not have foreseen. That is how creativity works.

You don't have to be an inventor to be creative. Yes, some creative people have had wild, crazy ideas that have changed the world. Others have given us an easier way to get ketchup out of the bottle. Still others have found new ways to manage a business, lead a class, or do housework more efficiently. Many people assume they are not creative because they haven't invented anything "real." The reality is that most of us have to be extremely creative just to survive in today's information and action-packed world.

You can't "think" or "wish" yourself into being more creative. But there are several ways you can help cultivate creativity. Here are three of them:

• Visualize. Turn your idea into a mental picture. The simplest way to make creativity work for you is to see your idea being successful even before you know exactly how it is going to work. Try to picture each step you must go through as being successfully completed. Get a picture of how all the parts will work together. You may have to change some of your plans as they move from your brain to the real world, but this idealized picture will give you a definite place to start.

• Put the pen to paper. Although computers have their uses, there's something about writing things down the old-fashioned way that seems to stimulate the brain. Whether you write your ideas down in a list, a formal outline, or just brainstorm information, putting the pen to paper gives your ideas order and clarity.

• Be open to change. It is hard to be creative when you are in a rut. When you do the same thing every day in the same old way, your ideas are going to come out the same way they always do. If you want to increase your level of creativity, increase your level of activity—physically and mentally. Give yourself a new frame of reference. Try more things, learn more things, get involved in more things. Let yourself be surprised by what you find. It's the element of surprise that gets you excited. It changes your mood, your ideas, even the way you look at life.

Take the approach of martial-arts expert Bruce Lee: You collect information, you discard what is not useful, then you use your own style, personality, and intelligence to create something better.

Creativity can solve almost any problem. The creative act, the defeat of habit by originality, overcomes everything.

—George Lois,
author