Life can sometimes feel like a competition. Most people want to come out on top in the day to day rat race of work, life, and personal challenges. Having strong idea generation skills as part of your creative process can fast track you on the journey to success. A winning idea gets results and stands out from the norm.
What Is A Winning Idea?
There are limitless possibilities that fit into this category. A winning idea could be a creative solution. A winning idea could be an efficient plan of action. A new product idea or design can also apply. The sky is the limit.
Innovation
A common theme in the topic of winning ideas seems to be the idea of innovation. According to the Merriam Webster dictionary, Innovation is defined as: “a new idea, method, or device.” Using innovation as part of your idea creation process is a critical step. The process of creating something new in your work can be the key to the success of a project.
Techniques For Idea Generation:
- Write down an idea list on paper. Sometimes the act of writing out or drawing ideas can inspire great ideas.
- Brainstorm in groups & collaborate with peers
- Take a deep dive into the subject that you are seeking new ideas for. Reading new materials and exposing yourself to new ideas can often inspire creativity.
No Pressure
An important fact to keep in mind when trying to come up with innovative or creative ideas is not to pressure yourself. Don’t expect perfection or stress out if the ideas don’t come. Secondly do not try to create innovative winning ideas when under the pressure of a time deadline. This generally leads to loss of creativity or new ideas simply due to being stressed out by the process.
Set The Mood For Winning Ideas
The best way to inspire creativity is in a low-stress environment. Keep a positive attitude and mindset about brainstorming and searching for innovation. If the experience is enjoyable you are more likely to be inspired. Creativity flows when the mind is free to innovate and create.
The more that you get in touch with your idea generation skills and creative abilities the stronger you get at this process. Creativity and generating winning ideas is something that takes practice. Practice makes competence. Jump in and start innovating. Create a winning idea today.
Sources:
1. https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/innovation
Where Ideas Come from ?
Walt Disney had many, many great ideas. Agreed?
Well… you may be in for a surprise. Disney made himself a solid reputation by churning out hugely entertaining classics over the years. They filled the movie theaters, made millions of people happy and put millions of dollars in Walt’s pockets.
The only problem with this scenario is that they weren’t originally Walt’s stories.
Walt Disney took the children’s stories written by the Grimm brothers in the 17-1800’s and adapted them to modern audiences.
Ever hear the expression, “there’s nothing new under the Sun?”
If you’re expressly trying to figure out something completely new, it’ll feel forced. Like you are trying to create something from absolutely nothing. But when you take a look at existing ideas, you can try to figure out how to adapt them for people who have less resources like money or time, or who haven’t realized how much the original idea might help them, or any number of other ways that make the new idea better than the original.
Think that’s cheating?
Have you watched Sherlock on BBC, or Elementary on CBS? They were adaptations from Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s original stories. They weren’t even rewritten to the extent that names were changed much. Even some stories hadn’t been changed beyond recognition – yet they each held audiences spellbound simply because they were set in a different time period.
When we come up with an idea, it’s usually because we have associated two things with each other that weren’t associated before. These form a new idea.
Examples in literature might be Twilight fan fiction that became 50 Shades of Grey. Possibly a bad example, but if you can stretch your imagination enough to accept it as literature you will get the point.
Steve Jobs pointed out that creativity is just connecting things – and that creative people often feel guilty because they just see new connections between existing ideas, where others don’t.
He had a point.
One of the only necessities for creating ideas is to do so in a safe environment. Ideas don’t stand up very well to inspection. We care what theirs think. So we don’t like to share our ideas in case others think they are bad ideas, or that we lack intelligence. Unfortunately, such behavior in itself shows a lack of intelligence. But the damage is already done.
If you start off with an idea that donuts might taste good if they were made to taste like potato chips, but give up on the idea because someone is dismissive of it, then chances are you’ll never associate different ideas with it long enough for one of them to stick.
Next time you need an idea, try associating different ones that exist in a different way – and leave your psychoanalyst at home.
How do you know your idea is good?
As a creative person, that’s often the question we ask ourselves. What seems like an awesome idea one day, seems like a waste of time the next. The truth is that most ideas are good – and then there are ideas that are really great. The type that you know you need to write down on the nearest napkin, cigarette packet or bathroom wall.
A whole series of productivity apps have surfaced thanks to the recognition of this pattern: Evernote, Notes, Wunderlist, and more – all evolving to cater to the growing number of entrepreneurial and creative people who at the least make note of their ideas. Even if they do nothing with those ideas ever again.
So, what happens when you find yourself in a slump? Your business or personal enjoyment may to some extent rely on you being an ideas person.
Here are three ideas that will help you drag creativity from its hiding place in your soul out into the great wide open.
1. Spend time around different people
The general population is made up of all sorts of people – and while most of us are fairly “average” in our day-to-day processes, there are always outliers. Those bizarre people who rollerblade through traffic, dressed in a 3 piece suit with their dog running alongside.
People who behave in ways outside what we deem as normal will often give us food for thought. That is why movies and TV series are so popular. We live vicariously through them – imagining ourselves in a different life where the rules are almost the same as here in reality, but skewed towards unusual events happening at least every 40 minutes.
We are the result of the top 5 people we spend time with, said Zig Ziglar. So the more diverse company you keep – the more open your mind will be to different ideas.
2. Read more
Travel broadens the mind – but if you can’t afford to travel or just don’t have the time for it, a book is just as good. It’s been shown time and time again that our brains can’t differentiate between what we read (see) and imagine – and what’s real. That’s why exciting books make us hold our breath in anticipation.
3. Write more
Stephen King said that all great writers are readers. Just writing down your ideas gets them out of your head and into a “brain dump” freeing you up to have more ideas. When they run freely, it’s just a matter of sorting the great from the good – like panning for gold.
Do you need more inspiration to get your creative juices flowing ? Use this resource to get a jump start on you next brilliant idea
