Want To Be Creative: Stop Doing These 6 Things

Courtesy of Sam Harrison of Zing Zone

1. Stop judging when generating ideas.
Is judgment taking place during your brainstorming — whether with a team or by yourself? Stop it. Brainstorms come to a halt whenever we say, “That’s a stupid idea,” or “We’ve already tried that,” or “That will never work,” or “The client won’t like it,” or “We can’t afford it.”
Don’t mix brainstorming and editing. They’re two totally separate activities.
2. Stop seeking perfection.
You’ll never find it. Not in your organization. Not in other people. Not in yourself.
“Even if the world was perfect,” said Yogi Berra, “it wouldn’t be.”
Always give your best, but don’t let quests for perfection paralyze creativity.
3. Stop all that worrying.
If worrying worked, it would be a precious commodity. We could just prop up our feet, worry our heads off and watch problems magically dissolve.
But that never happens. Worry is insidious because we’re focusing all of our time and energy on exactly what we don’t want to have happen. Wouldn’t our finite resources be better spent focusing on solutions?
More people die of worry than work, a mentor told me, because more people worry than work.
Identify the problem — then spring into creative action.
4. Stop being afraid to fail.
Visit the Tim Burton exhibit currently at MOMA, and you’ll see the achievements of one of our most creative and successful artists. But you’ll also see a list of his projects that never saw the light of day.
Burton understands failure is part of the creative process. He generates lots of ideas. Puts himself out there. Takes risks. Some of his ideas make it to reality. Others are slammed to the ground.
Burton puts those failures in the rear-view mirror and keeps moving ahead.
“Fail early to succeed sooner.” That’s the mantra of IDEO, one of the world’s most creative product-development firms.
5. Stop blaming others.
When asked what Teach for America looks for in its candidates, founder Wendy Kopp said: “It’s what we call internal locus of control — people who, in the context of a challenge, have the instinct to figure out what they can control and own it rather than to blame everyone else in the system.”
Exercise your internal locus of control. Stop blaming others. Figure out what you can control and creatively change it.
6. Stop taking yourself too seriously.
Highly creative people laugh a lot — and often at themselves. When you find yourself all puffed up or with your pants in a wad, head for the bathroom. Look in the mirror. Laugh out loud. Resume life.
And be silly now and then. “If nobody ever did anything silly,” said Ludwig Wittenstein, “nothing intelligent would ever be done.”Run around the room with a child. Roll on the floor with a dog. Sing a stupid jingle until it gets stuck in your partner’s head. Hold a bubble-blowing contest with co-workers. Make a paper airplane and sail it out the window. Leave a trail of pennies down a hallway or sidewalk. Give your right brain lots of open space. Creativity loves a playground.