Updated 2/5/00
Tools for Success
Creativity trainers frequently recommend the following tools for success:
When Winston Churchill was invited to address the young boys' school he attended as a child, he gave the following inspirational and very short speech:
"Never give in. Never give in. Never give in, never, never, never -- in nothing great or small, large or petty -- never give in, except to conviction, honor, and good sense."
According to Edison, genius is 99% perspiration and 1% inspiration.
Problem Solving Under Pressure
About halfway through Raiders of the Lost Ark is a very insightful scene. Our hero is in the middle of the enemy camp, surrounded by hundreds of armed Nazis and thousands of workers hired by the Nazis. The Nazi soldiers, armed to the teeth, have just taken off in trucks with the treasure they stole from him.
Our hero rises to go after them, unarmed, on foot, when his girlfriend asks him desperately, "What are you going to do!?"
"I don't know! I'm just making this up as I go along!"
That's how life often is... how work often is... and how many creative endeavors go. You can't wait until it's convenient to work. You can't slow the world down. There's always more things happening than you have mental energy to follow.
In such cases, knowing what to ignore is as important as focusing in on the challenge before you. And even when you do eliminate the distractions, you still must face those nagging accusations, "You don't even know what you are doing! You're wasting your time and your customer's money! You'll never produce anything of value for this project!"
Dealing with Feelings of Inadequacy
Once you make the decision to be creative, to get away from traditional solutions, and break new trail, you leave behind that comfortable support structure that pats you on the back for no-brainer, cookbook solutions.
For most projects that I work on, the first 90% of the time I'm hounded with doubts about my capabilities. It usually isn't until the last 10% of the project that half-formed ideas, blind intuition and persistence begin to pay off; then I realize I will be able to produce good results. Feelings of inadequacy are typical. Anticipate them, and wait them out.
Limits or Challenges?
The runner barely made the US team for the Olympics that year. His lifetime best was nowhere near enough to win a medal. But, while others were pacing themselves so they could maintain optimum speed, he had a dangerous thought, "I wonder what it would be like to be out in front, just once."
So, he sped up, foolishly wasting precious energy reserves, passing the favored Russian runner. Now, he would be content to finish last, if he could even finish the race.
But, the crowd, misinterpreting his foolishness, rose to its feet, cheering on the unexpected contender.
"They're cheering for me!" He exclaimed. "I can't let them down!"
And he didn't.
How many times in life are we deprived of reasonable achievements for lack of the mere foolishness of trying?
T. M. Watson, one of the founders of IBM, sought to teach his people to double their mistake rate. He knew that by teaching his people to seek the learning in new activities, rather than fearing potential punishment, they'd would develop new ideas more quickly.
Only doers make mistakes. When you make a mistake because you were pioneering, concentrate on the fact that you are doing something, not on the mistakes that come along the way.
One way to encourage ourselves in this is to eliminate the fear. I do this by allowing myself 5 mistakes a day, plus carryover. That means, if I only make 2 mistakes today, I get to make 7 tomorrow. (Silly joke, I know, but sometimes the best cure for fear is laughter).
But, no career or company can stand many big mistakes, so keep your mistakes small. We do this by bouncing the ideas off of the people around us. Those around you may not be "smart" enough to check your ideas for errors, but the mere process of explaining the details to them may alert us to the errors. (In our own minds, we think in the tree tops of higher ideas. The mistakes are often made down in amongst the lower branches. When we have to explain the ideas to someone not as smart as we are, we have to "go down to the forest floor" to help them understand. It's a good journey to take).
Find others who are interested in working on the problem with you. We were discouraged from doing this in school (working with others is "cheating". Besides, we were graded on the curve, and that means you want the other guy to do worse than you).
We all have enough time (just as much as Bill Gates, and he does all right with his time). We just waste our time.
Priorities: We need to separate the truly important from that which is just urgent. Deciding what is truly important is usually an internal decision (what's important to you). Urgency comes from outside (what's important to someone else). Make sure you can tell the difference.
Delegation: Many of us think, "If it's going to be done right, I'll have to do it myself." That's probably true. Others would not do it exactly as we would. However, does it matter? If we had more time to do the things we really want to do, would we be willing for some of those less important tasks to be done to someone else's standards? The key here is delegating the less important tasks to others, so you can do what is really important, in your eyes.
The most valuable "thing" on earth is time, because when we die, we will leave all of our earthly riches behind. When Bill Gates is on his deathbed, do you think he'd be willing to give up half of his fortune to live another year? So would you.
So, we have to know how to spend our time wisely.
Structure your activities around creativeness. Use "wasted time" (standing in line, waiting in traffic). Have a pocket notebook so you can use that five minutes to update your "to do" list, or switch into your creative mode and jot down some new ideas. This is impractical in a moving car, so buy one of those little digital recorders (smaller than a pack of cards, voice activated, costs less than $50).
Don’t waste time, just say "no". Because time is so valuable, there's always someone else trying to steal some of ours. Head them off at the pass and just say "no." Give yourself the right to control your own time.
Any rich person knows that the easiest way to make more money is to invest what you have. The same works for your time. Invest 1 hour per week in your future. By this I mean, making yourself smarter, more efficient, or preparing for the job you've always dreamed about. This may mean learning to touch type, sprucing up your computer skills, studying speed reading or taking that first step training for the job you really want.
All of us have those times in the day when we just run out of steam. So, we end up just occupying space instead of accomplishing anything with our most valuable treasure, time. If you're not in mood, change your mood or change your work. When I have those mid-afternoon slumps, I find my mood can be changed by playing some Christian music. Or, I can switch to less demanding work that has to be done anyway.
Recognize saturation and let it cook. Do as much as you can with conscious effort and the conscious mind, then turn it over to your subconscious while you work on a different problem. I used to have a second job, programming and debugging computer code in the evening. Often I would stay up until 1 or 2 am in the morning, trying to find a computer bug. Then, on the run to work the next day, the answer would pop into my head (Before that happened, I used to think you had to have the computer printout directly in front of you to find the bugs). This happened enough times that I began to count on it. Rather than staying up so late at night, I would merely "introduce" the problem to my subconscious mind (this means, do everything you can consciously, but then quit when you are no longer productive). I cannot remember a time when I didn't end up solving the difficult problems while running to work.
You have to take good care of yourself (After all, when your body is gone, where will you live?) Peak performers have always given proper attention to their diet, ensuring good nutrition, and exercise. No workaholics are peak performers because they don't realize that power comes from proper balance.
Peak Performers also cultivate important relationships. There are no lone wolves who can perform at their best because... people need people.