How to Develop Creative Vision

To create anything you must first envision it. I like to say it this way: you must see it to create it. A common word we use to explain vision is imagination. Nothing comes to fruition without imagination. Stephen Covey, author of The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, states that, “Everything is created twice.” You first envision and create it within you then you fabricate and create it without.

We all have two pairs of eyes – our outer pair and an inner pair. Our outer pair is held down by limitations and boundaries. They feed us with the helpful but limited information to go about our everyday life. With your inner pair, sight has no boundary. You can see and be wherever you want to see and be. You can be in a village on the outskirts of Zungeru and yet travel in your mind to the Avenue of Stars in Hong Kong, or the Eiffel tower of Paris. You can experience the snow peak of Mount Kilimanjaro while living in a valley near Lokoja!

So, to create you must first see your boundless creation!

In addition, it isn’t simply enough to see it. You must be able to see it clearly. You must be able to define it in your mind. A blur is not enough. The blueprint in your mind must be specific and clear cut. Below is an excerpt from the autobiography of one of the greatest inventors of his generation, Nikola Telsa, which explains my thought:

“… I observed to my delight that I could visualise with the greatest facility. I needed no models, drawings or experiments. I could picture them all as real in my mind. Thus I have been led unconsciously to evolve what I consider a new method of materialising inventive concepts and ideas, which is radically opposite to the purely experimental and is in my opinion ever so much more expeditious and efficient.

"The moment one constructs a device to carry into practice a crude idea, he finds himself unavoidably engrossed with the details of the apparatus. As he goes on improving and reconstructing, his force of concentration diminishes and he loses sight of the great underlying principle. Results may be obtained, but always at the sacrifice of quality. My method is different. I do not rush into actual work. When I get an idea, I start at once building it up in my imagination. I change the construction, make improvements and operate the device in my mind. It is absolutely immaterial to me whether I run my turbine in thought or test it in my shop. I even note if it is out of balance. There is no difference whatever; the results are the same. In this way I am able to rapidly develop and perfect a conception without touching anything. When I have gone so far as to embody in the invention every possible improvement I can think of and see no fault anywhere, I put into concrete form this final product of my brain. Invariably my device works as I conceived that it should, and the experiment comes out exactly as I planned it. In twenty years there has not been a single exception. Why should it be otherwise?”

Nikola Telsa went on to visualize and invent the Alternating Current, electric bulbs, discovered X-rays, Radio, Remote Control, Electric Motor, Robotics, Laser, Wireless Communications and Limitless Free Energy. 

In Your Image

Have you considered the question, “What is creativity?” What does it mean to create something that hasn’t been there before? What makes creative people creative? Can you and I be creative? Without considering such probing questions it will be noteworthy to realize that everything that we have around us was created by someone – the chairs, the hall, the microphone, the sound system, your mobile devices – everything!

MADE IN YOUR IMAGE

The underlying principle to the best of creativity is in creating something in your own image. The best creation that will ever come from you must have your image and carry your own life within it. The great writer, Chinua Achebe, wrote Things Fall Apart when he was 26 years old. This is what he had to say about it:

“I was conscripted by the story, and I was writing it at all times – whenever there was an opening. It felt like a sentence, an imprisonment of creativity. I worked on my writing mostly at night. I was seized by the story and I found myself totally ensconced in it. It was almost like living a parallel realm, a dual existence not in any negative sense but in the way a hand has two surfaces, united in purpose but very different in tone, appearance, character, and structure.”

Things Fall Apart has so far sold over 10 million copies worldwide in addition to being translated into various foreign languages and turned into a movie series. Your perfect creation must have not just your signature but your image and life.

Get Your Creative Juices Flowing...

Others have seen what is and asked why? I have seen what could be and asked why not? - Pablo Picasso

A human’s mind is a vast machine (for lack of a better word). Its horizons are broad and open to pictures and ideas. Creativity is the ability to use this vast machine to make changes. It has nothing to do with money, education, age, I.Q., sex or any of the other ‘important’ things. Rather, it has all to do with imagination, ideas, personal perception and garbage.

Worthless things are the primary fuel for creativity. Your imagination being the father of your creativity makes what it wants from the things available- and the most available things usually are seen as ‘worthless’. Everyone who achieved anything worthy in life had to do it out of the seeming nothing that existed when they set out to do it. Anything can become anything. It is all a function of what your mind makes of it.

Think! There must be something you can create to make your life better than it is right now. Refuse to be among the ninety percent of people that don’t think- I mean really think. Every problem submits to sustained thought. Think until that which is nothing becomes something. Think until you become a creator.

Some people seem to be more creative than others. Many say, “I am not as creative as the guy next door”. That is the same as saying “I am not as fit as the guy next door”. The latter may be evident from your present physique in comparison to the guy next door. The truth is that being fit is hinged on your exercises and workouts. Once your muscles stretch daily, they grow larger and stronger. It is the same with your mind. You are not as creative as your contemporaries because you have not stretched your mind in creative thinking enough. You receive every streamlined, finished work from your environment and tell yourself “It can’t get any better”. This is the popular misconception. Contrary to it, everyone and not only a select few are able to unleash a steady flow of creative genius.

In order to consistently give out great results, the muscle of creativity needs daily exercise. If you don’t practice harnessing creative thinking, the creative ability in you will very much shrivel into nonexistence  However, keep working and the creative genius in you will keep growing with great results as proofs.

(Culled from: Do it Like Kids by Yusuf Leinge)

Excellence

If a man is called to be a street sweeper, he should sweep streets even as Michelangelo painted, or Beethoven composed music, or Shakespeare wrote poetry. He should sweep streets so well that all the hosts of heaven and earth will pause and say, "Here lived a great street sweeper who did his job well." - Martin Luther King (jnr)

 How much boast can you make about your works? Can you boldly speak about the works of your hands and demand they speak for themselves? Can you append your name on your work if you knew it would be placed side-by-side with the best in your field?

If you would be tremendously successful you must have a spirit of excellence. This spirit will give you the boast for your work anywhere in the world because it dots the “i’s” and crosses the “t’s”. Noah had this spirit and so we read of him that, “Noah did everything exactly as God commanded him.” To develop the spirit of excellence, consider the following:

Make every work a masterpiece. It is important you take every work you do as an extension of your life. People considering your works are not merely meeting a piece of work but are meeting you; what first impressions are you leaving?  If you have this in mind you will handle each task as a masterpiece work of art set with intent for the audience.

Develop skill. It is also important you develop skill in every detail of your works. The archaic definition of the word skill means to “make a difference”. In view of this, decide to make a difference in every area of your works. There is always something else you can do to improve your work. You do not need to do it the same way you have done it before neither do you have to do it the way others do it.

Learn from others. It is important to keep an ever- learning attitude in all you do. Don’t get to the point that you feel you know it all. If your heart is open there is always something you can learn from just about everyone.

Innovate. Innovation is the icing on creativity. It means to effect a change. Do not strive endlessly trying to do something nobody has done before. Simply change what has been, making it better.

Excellence is reserved for a select few – follow this and you will be one of them. 

Awaken Your Dreams!

Then he had another dream, and he told it to his brothers. “Listen,” he said, “I had another dream, and this time the sun and moon and eleven stars were bowing down to me. – Joseph (the Prime Minister of Ancient Egypt)

There is a part I love in Disney’s Alice in Wonderland, and it is the point Alice tells of how she believes in six impossible things. "Why, sometimes I've believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast,” she says. I like that statement because it summarizes the life of a dreamer.
The dreamer believes. He or she believes in some ideal that is non-existent at the moment – that is what makes it a dream! But what makes it interesting is the fact that many dreams dreamers believe in appear impossible.
Impossibility - this is what ensures that many sermons are not preached and many songs remain in song book and countless inventions remain in the mind and many ideas remain unheard of. It is the thought of impossibility that introduces fear in us and shuts our capacity to believe the dream-words we once boldly proclaimed. It is the attitude of impossibility that has left our multi-blessed continent centuries behind leading world economies.
The thought of impossibility must be killed! We must be like Martin Luther King (Jnr) who proclaimed in the face of grave impossibility that, “I have a dream…” Or like Eleanor Roosevelt who said, “The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams,” Or reason like Walt Disney when he said, “No matter how your heart is grieving, if you keep on believing, the dreams that you wish will come true,” Or be like old Jacob and reawaken the dying dreams that once burned in our hearts, with the question, “What is this dream you had?”
Dreamers move the world. They are the Noah, who dreamed of a holy world, and the Abraham, who dreamed of a land that milk and honey flows, and the Moses, who dreamed of liberating a whole nation out of bondage of the most powerful authority of his time, and the Joseph, who dreamed of becoming a great man, and the Jesus, who dreamed of saving us all.
We cannot live without dreamers. Are you one? I conclude with an excerpt from Alice in Wonderland:

Door: Why it's simply impassible!

Alice: Why, don't you mean impossible?

Door: No, I do mean impassible. (chuckles) Nothing's impossible! 

Who Do You Think You Are?

As a man thinks so is he... - A Proverb of Solomon

Whenever the question, "Who do you think you are?" is asked it is often connected with a bid to bring down or look down on someone. I have not seen several instances where the question is answered directly. Rather, it is given a sharp response of “Who then do you too think you are?” Of a truth this question can easily be described as rude but then let us really analyze it.

Who do you think you are? Your answer, howbeit nonverbal, is very important to how and when you succeed. This is so because what you think of you will define your life. A person is what he or she thinks about most of the time.

So, who do you think you are?

The answer to that is in as many variants as there are people on earth. Some think they are ugly others think they are beautiful. Some think their lives are not worth living others think there can’t be a better time to live. Some think they are meant to live poor, sick and sorry lives others think they should be rich, healthy and hyper-excited.

It is interesting that people produce the very results they think often about. I sometimes point this out to my students by bringing out the top three in the class and ask them if they ever think they may drop below the first five positions in class and in all occasions the answer is the same – “never!” They remain tops because they, first of all, think they should be tops.

You must change your thoughts to fit where you claim you will attain. Without changing our thoughts we cannot change anything else. Santosh Kalwar (a poet) once said, “We are addicted to our thoughts, we cannot change anything if we cannot change our thinking.” 

Creativity NOW!

           Imagination is everything. It is the preview of life's coming attractions. - Albert Einstein 

 Generate curiosity: the first thing needed is curiosity. Curiosity stems from creativity. Curiosity and creativity are linked by a two-way arrow. The process for developing either can go in both directions. You can use your curiosity, which is actually easier to form, to develop creativity. This can most easily be done by asking probing questions. If used appropriately Questions open up things that ordinarily will remain closed. Some questioning tips are:

Tip no. 1: Ask yourself about changes. E.g. What would taste better if it were less sweet? How can I make it sweeter? Tip no. 2: Ask yourself questions with lots of answers. E.g. What are some of the uses of air?

             Think deep: Creativity never occurs in the shallow regions of the mind but rather in its deep recesses. Treasure is never found floating on the surface of ocean waters but rather deep down at the bottom of it where only the resilient get to.

              Form a picture of what you want: You must see it in your mind’s eye. Anything can be seen in the mind. Very few people know that. You see, you have two pairs of eyes. The first is the outward eye, which is visible to everyone. Your outward eye sees only the things that are in the physical environment. The inner pair sees beyond. It sees what cannot be seen from the physical environment. Both pairs work together in feeding your mind with information. The outer eyes feed your mind with information that has defined boundaries. However, this is not so with the inner pair. The inner pair feeds your mind with boundless information. With your inner eyes, sight has no boundaries unless the ones you map out for it. You can create the picture of anything you desire to see or have physically.

               Do not let your environment restrict you: have a mindset that what you see is never what you get. Anything can become anything. A boulder can be a statue, a black stone can be coal, a tree can be paper, that problem you are looking at can be a business. Do not despise all seemingly worthless things. They are the parents of all worthwhile things.