The Art of Having No Idea
How to get into the open state needed for creative thinking
1. 'Am I being creative yet'?
2. Most of our ideas never see reality. Our brain moves a thousand timesfaster than our body, giving out new concepts that seem brilliant to us all the time, but without any of the boring detail & actions required to make them happen.
3. Bringing these ideas & projects to fruition requires patience and determination. Fortunately for me, the world of networking & learning opened the windows for me to be - to pull stuff from inside me and put it out there into the world.
4. That's my way of thinking about what creative people do when it's going well: pulling stuff from the inside to the outside.
5. Not to say that what comes out is all about them — it seems to me that what a creative does is tap into something much bigger, something shared but invisible or unspoken - that's floating around in everyone's consciousness waiting to be said or seen, but that most people overlook.
6. This is what stand-up comedians do; brilliant strategists; good artists; genius physicists; even horrible politicians — they call something out that's just on the edge of acceptability but not quite there yet - and that is energizing; not necessarily good, but definitely mobilizing. It gets things moving.
7. This is what happens to every new idea: it gets integrated into daily life and starts to become dense and old like everything else. But for a while it carries all the energy of the unknown. That's what creativity is — it comes from somewhere else that we don't know about. A place you can't think your way to.
8. We all need to be creative so that we can make a world that's fit to live in. So why not start now?
9. The Art of Having No Idea (Contd.)
10. How to be in a open state needed for creative Thinking,
11. Getting into creative mode is frustrating, and I know this because when I sit at my desk trying to be creative, thinking about what to do next — I just get more and more frustrated until I find myself in a tiny hole where everything is dark and I can hear my voice echoing "I'll get there! I'll get there!" and nothing else. It never does get anywhere. So instead I have to find ways to forget about myself, and then at some point, unpredictably, something good happens.
12. This paradox is what lies at the heart of all creative work, all innovation and all value that is ever created. At some point you have to accept that you have no idea. Then something may arrive.
13. This constraint isn't limited to creative people only - it is something we all need to master. It's what we need to get good at in order to create the better world that we all deserve to live in. But it can't be faked or rushed. It's like learning how to crawl again, when we've been pretending we can walk or even run for years.
14. Learning how to crawl is a good way of describing where I am personally in this journey of creativity. I am starting to get it. I have these fleeting, vivid moments of insight that lead to possible action. But it's a very different thing from what I normally experience as an 'Idea'. An idea is clearly a thought, whereas this other thing is more like a vision or sense of knowing that pops into my head.
15. So here are my three tips for inviting that creative state:
16. 1. Learn to have no idea
17. If you can relax your brain from thinking, even if it's for a few seconds, then you will immediately be opening it up for new possibilities.
18. 2. Undistract yourself
19. Experiment with curtailing your addictions, even for one day at a time. And see how it goes.
20. 3. If you're not enjoying it, stop
21. What outcome might have been possible if you had stopped for a moment and opened up to another approach or solution?
22. This is all it takes, and it's a practice that is key to anyone whose bread and butter relies on them responding effectively in the moment, or collaborating closely with others.
23. Finally I reiterate – "We all need to be creative so that we can make a world that's fit to live in. So why not start now?"