Experts say that if you do something for 10,000 hours you become an expert. Unfortunately, experts don’t necessarily come up with fresh ideas or ways to handle problems creatively.
Creativity is an effective way of succeeding in the long run, according to meQuilibrium CEO Jan Bruce in her latest Forbes column. According to Jan, creativity can lead to new opportunities, solutions and ways to satisfy customers’ expectations. Jan lays out a few helpful tips to tap into your creative genius:
1. You implement the right kind of structure: This may sound contradictory but creativity does not happen in a vacuum. It requires the creation of a space where new ideas can be developed and existing rules questioned.
2. You thrive under pressure, but aren’t purely deadline-driven: Feeling the pressure of a deadline can make you concentrate and work better, but if this pressure transforms into stress to meet the deadline, you have killed creativity before it even started. Give your team and yourself time to play around with new ideas.
3. You’re not just out for a win: Creativity is the desire to change the way people see and do things, not the desire to get there first.
4. You’re not afraid to be a newbie: If there is nothing left to learn, what would you be able to improve? Not knowing about something can sometimes be a good thing.
5. You embrace change: Creative people see how things can be improved or do differently so they are always looking for ways of shaking things up.
Jan Bruce is available to comment and give expert advice and helpful tips on this issue as well as stress related topics. She is the CEO and co-founder of meQuilibrium, an app that teaches people how to dial down stress levels. Jan regularly contributes to the Huffington Post (‘Stress Is the New Fat‘) and Forbes (‘Why You Need To Stop Working All The Time’). You can also see Jan’s official reel here.
