Assume no restraints, no budget, or time limitations. Vow “I dare to be bad”–you have permission to make mistakes, lots of them. Oscar Wilde, a writer had this to say: “You can’t use up creativity. The more you use, the more you have.”
Are you hesitant to jump in? Here’s a quote from Isamu Noguchi, a sculptor: “You can find out how to do something and then do it or do something and then find out what you did.” An encouraging old Nike slogan says, “Just Do It.’ It captures the attitude of an adventurer, and you are that adventurer. Johann Wolfgang von Goethe said it with elegance, “Whatever you can do, or dream you can, begin it. Boldness has genius power and magic in it.”
You can build on every idea you generate. Maybe what you come up with is not what you planned. Maybe it’s better than you planned, or maybe it’s purpose was to persuade you that wasn’t the right way to go. Sometimes a small piece of a mental puzzle you’re working through, becomes a springboard to a totally new idea.
Challenge assumptions. Are you tackling the right problem? Are you proceeding in the normal expected way? Creative thinking is about taking leaps–going beyond the expected to make new and unusual connections.
Timing can play a part in creativity. Maybe other things need to happen for a solution to work. So, if there’s a red light ahead, keep going. It may be green when you get there. In some ways creativity is related to faith. If you didn’t have faith you would never begin a journey or start a project, so enjoy the exploring.
Now there is usually a point you need to stop exploring and make the most of your explorations. Assuming you now have a quantity of possible ideas, it’s time to go for quality. Here are some thoughts on that: You do not need to use every idea you’ve come up with. Less is more. Do good editing. Can you narrow or distill the topic?. Ruthlessly “slash and burn” ideas that do not fit or contribute to the solution you are heading towards.
To narrow a topic: the following is a thought picked up from Robert Pirsig’s book, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. Start with a page of writing, distill it to a half page, then distill that to a business card size–and you will have arrived at conveying the essence of your idea.