It is not easy to come up with unique ideas just by going on your daily life.
There are many jobs in the world that require ideas from people who have decided to live their lives as artists, creative people, or people who are not directly involved in the arts.
“What kind of things do creative people do in their lives?”
“It seems hard to keep coming up with ideas…”
Many of you may be asking yourself these questions.
In this article, we will introduce seven habits that we have acquired through our activities as artists over the past 10 years. These habits will
・Lead to new inspirations.
・Enjoy your daily life.
・Even the most mundane things become art.
These are all things you can put into practice right now, so please give them a try.
目次
１. Choosing a Minor
Now, have you all heard of the saying, “A road behind a man’s path is a mountain of flowers”?
This phrase means to avoid roads with many people, and that beautiful flowers bloom only on roads where there are no people. This phrase is often used as a market adage in stock trading, etc., but it is also applicable to art.
In our usual life, we can only come up with the same ideas as usual.If you want to have unique ideas, it is important to be aware of what you should do differently from the usual or from others.
Try something simple such as, “Try taking a different route to work,” or “Try eating with your left hand.However, there is something you need to do to take it to the next level.That is “risk”.
People make completely different behavioral choices depending on the presence, amount, and degree of risk.
For example, taking an unusual route often involves the risk of losing more time than one would normally take. Or there is the risk of anxiety about taking an unfamiliar road that is more unfamiliar than usual.
Trying to eat a meal with your left hand risks that you might accidentally drop the food on the floor or lose it. There may be a risk of irritation because you can’t eat well.
But are these risks really risks? Depending on how you think about it, that could be interesting. You may discover something new from it. And if the weight of the risk is not so great for once, wouldn’t it be okay to lose money on a new encounter?
When we try something, we should try to incorporate various “risks” into our daily life. (but not too much risk).
There are many different depths and ranges of risk, but try to keep them in mind.
Also, what is “minor” or “underground” may just be “not generally needed,” “someone else has already tried it and hasn’t succeeded,” or “relatively low value.
In order to compare whether your minor choice is a possibility or not, you must first have the judgment to do the research and know what the criteria are and the types of things you are looking for.
2. Make it Happen rather than not Make it Happen
We are all expressive people, even if we are not artists.
Furthermore, those of us in the profession of “expressive people” need more energy to push ourselves daily than we can imagine.
Living in this world, there are any number of reasons that can spring up to stop one’s expressive activities.It is very important to always stay active, even though it is hard work.
Keep changing your daily routine so that you can enjoy every day of it!
The YES Man Way: “YES over NO”
When you are given a task, instead of saying “no,” say “yes, I will do it.
This method is a good way to
・See the job in a positive way.
・By making it your job, you will grow and gain trust from others even in difficult situations.
This has the effect of “I’m going to go today.
It is also effective when making “Do-or-Not-Do” decisions, such as “I was going to go today, but I don’t know if I should go or not….
As in the famous psychological principles of “When shall I start…” and “Now! are also words that stimulate motivation and drive, as in the psychological principles of “I’d rather make it happen than not.”
By changing your behavior to YES, you are habituating yourself to a personality that is always looking for new encounters and the unknown.
If you are in a situation where you have to create new ideas, products, or works of art, why not do it in order to change from the foundation of your personality?
3. Always Question
It is often said that “always questioning” is not limited to the arts, but also to innovation systems and various other genres.Continuously questioning is necessary for all people who live active lives, and is very important for sustaining their profession.
However, it is difficult to keep questioning everything, because it is a constant headache.
However, if you keep asking questions and working to solve them, you will not only gain new knowledge and discoveries on a daily basis, but you may also make unexpected connections.
In order for freelancers and self-employed people to continue to make “small innovations,” they need to question the “norm” in their industry and think about what their clients might question. We need to think about what our clients might be wondering about.
Then, you need to find a way to solve those questions (solutions) by taking creative action.
4. It is okay to be Bored.
I started to do it, but then I got bored.
“I’m satisfied once I know some things.”
I’m satisfied with what I’ve learned.
This word “bored” is a negative image, and you may hide this feeling from yourself and others.
Do you often hear people say, “Young people today can’t keep up with anything and are easily bored.”
Don’t you often hear people say that?
However, this may have been said not only now but also 30 years ago.
We do not know who is saying this, or from what standpoint.
However, it is not a positive or negative thing to be easily bored, but a good thing to be easily bored.
Let’s shift our viewpoint to some kind of “benefit” by taking advantage of being easily bored.
In other words, being “easily bored” has the potential to allow you to experience something completely different and unfamiliar.
Even if you study another genre, learn another lesson, or work another job, there will be things you don’t know that are even deeper within the same realm.
If you can explore one thing for decades, that’s great, and if you get bored, you can keep doing other things. That is fine.
There are certainly jobs and positions that suit each person’s temperament.
Incidentally, in Takafumi Horie’s book “Multipotentiality,” he also says that you should be like a monkey, easily bored and keep on trying new things and getting into various things. Of course, there is the caveat that you should get bored and move on to the next thing after you have had a period of time to get into it and concentrate on mastering it.
You also often hear “continuity is power. I think this is another great idea.
However, one of the characteristics of people who often get stuck on an idea is that their thinking has become a loop.
They keep thinking over and over again, unable to let go of the idea once it has occurred to them, saying, “It was a good idea until halfway through.
Whenever you feel “stuck,” you should make it a habit to step away from that thought for a while.
Don’t get attached to one thing and get bored with it.
And by trying different methods, techniques, and tools, you may come up with new ideas.
It’s that simple! Just try something else.
5. Curiosity, Interest, and Fun
From what we know of the artists that Art Survive Blog has seen, people who are not curious about many things will not become creators. That’s for sure.
If that is your main job, such as working according to a manual or doing the same tasks, there is nothing wrong with that.
But if you want to be free to explore things on your own, this is not the way to go.
Just like a car that cannot keep running without gasoline, you cannot keep expressing yourself without the energy source of “curiosity” or “interest.
On the other hand, even if you could continue to do something without curiosity, would it be interesting to you or to those around you?
As Taro Okamoto said, “I don’t like painters who only paint pictures, stop being occupationalists.”
I believe that this is a message that says that while human expression is important, people who just keep doing the same thing over and over again without thinking are boring.
There are few “unknowns” in the same daily routine.
New discoveries are made through unknown activities.
Curiosity, interest, and enjoyment are the key to your own feelings and thoughts, and you should be aware that they are free energy that you generate.
6. Be a Note-Taker
People are forgetful creatures.Ideas, in particular, spring up and then quickly fall away.
That is why you should get into the habit of writing things down before you forget them.
There is a little trick to writing things down.
It is a good idea to write down your feelings and emotions at the time you are writing down your ideas.This way, when you look back on it, you will remember the image more vividly. It is also a good idea to record your voice.
Finally, the important thing is not only to make notes, but also to materialize the ideas and feelings, in other words, to output them.Input is important for output.
By “writing” down thoughts and ideas that may disappear at any given moment, and then outputting to “digest” them, I believe that the creative spiral will run higher.
7. Strike a Blow in Our Daily Lives
We create products, ideas, and works of art through our work, but the foundation of these products, ideas, and works of art is our daily personal lives.
Then, there must be a place and time to create something in our private lives.
Try adding a twist to your everyday life.
Try cracking an egg with your non-dominant hand, moving around the room with your eyes closed, changing the position of your desk, or looking at yourself naked in the mirror.
Simple things that are a little out of the ordinary can stimulate inspiration and inspire new ideas.
Try changing your life a little while having fun.
Summary
These seven habits above will surely help you come up with new ideas.
To those of you who struggle to come up with ideas, I encourage you to put them into practice to make your daily life more enjoyable and full of inspiration and ideas.
