Ways to Get Ideas

14 Ways to Get Breakthrough Ideas- Mitch Ditkoff

In order to generate brilliant ideas we must first allow ourselves to be inspired.  Mitch Ditkoff"s 14 Ways to Get Breakthrough Ideas is a collection of valid suggestions in order to help the creative thinker/innovator take what inspires them and turn it into an idea and eventually a reality.  The first point discusses fascination. He explains that when one feels fascinated by an idea it is a clue that there is something there worth our engagement. We must let these fascinations and inspirations "grow inside us," he says.  I feel this suggestion is extremely important and a really great suggestion to help ones creativity. When digging deeper to fully understand what Ditkoff is trying to say in tip 1, I looked up the dictionary definition for inspiration.  The definition that would make most sense with Ditkoff's idea he is mentioning here is that inspiration is, "a stimulation or arousal of the mind, feelings, etc. to special or unusual activity or creativity." While I believe this definition is true, I unexpectedly found one of the definitions extremely intriguing.  An alternate definition for inspiration is the, " the act or process of inhaling; breathing in." This definition opened my eyes to the importance of being inspired and letting your self dwell on inspiration. Although, they are referring to the actual process of breathing it is also a metaphor that without inspiration your ideas cannot breathe and will eventually die.  Ditkoff is making this point here and telling us to not only allow our selves to be fascinated but immerse ourselves in fascination and inspiration in order to let our ideas grow.

A suggestion of Ditkoff's that struck me harder than most the others was suggestion # 3: Tolerate Ambiguity.  One's ability to stay in a "grey zone," he calls it, and not know.  This suggestion is a great suggestion that I really felt I needed to take notice of and act on.  It is definitely something I struggle with.  I get impatient when I can't find the answer I'm looking for and it hinders my creativity greatly. This is definitely something I need to work on.  I found a quote he uses in this section very meaningful. He quotes Thomas Edison after he was asked how it felt to fail 800 times before coming up with tungsten as the filament for the light bulb. “Fail?” Edison said. “I didn’t fail once. I learned 800 times what didn’t work.”  This quote really sums up for me the point Ditkoff is trying to make.  That we have to allow ourselves some breathing room and realize that not knowing is not always a bad thing and just because you may not be finding an answer when you want to doesn't mean the answer is not there. One can only fail when they decide to stop trying.

TAKE A BREAK! Tip # 8.  I am so glad Ditkoff mentioned this.  This is a tip I already do and it truly has helped my creativity and ideas flourish.  Sometimes you just need to clear you head to make room for the next cycle of ideas and questions to fill your brain and allow you to move forward.  He goes on to explain Seymour Cray's strategy for breaks and work time during his designing of high speed computers.  Cray would divide his time between designing and digging an underground tunnel below his home.  He explains that Cray would return to the lab with new ideas and when he was out there digging "elves" solved the problems he had in his lab so when he returned he was ready to continue.  Although, he was clearly joking about elves it made a lot of sense to explain it that way.  Whenever I am struggling with writing a new song or struggling with an issue in my life and I cannot find the answer I'm looking for I go for a drive.  A long drive with no particular destination is my underground tunnel.  Whenever I need to clear my head I get in my car, pop in a good CD and just drive.  Eventually, I have reached the other side of town and cleared my head of whatever issue I had been having before.  I find once I pull back into my driveway I suddenly get inspiration and am ready to continue working.

At the end of the article, in his description of Tip 14, he quotes Einstein in saying, "not everything that can be counted counts; and not everything that counts can be counted."  This quote resonated with me and really stuck with me to take the advice and not look at everything so concrete all of the time.  Like tip 14 says, suspend judgment and logic.  Enter a state of open mindedness and give your creativity and inspirations room to grow.  The prompt asks: What can you do this week to suspend practicality, logic and rationality in service to birthing your big idea?  This week I want to focus on feeling my inspirations and instead of picking them apart and dissecting what I think is useful, simply stop thinking just let myself feel the inspiration take hold of my idea.  Use mediums such as film and music to broaden my ideas and take myself out of my head and into an open space of free thinking.  I feel if I suspend my self in a state of open mindedness and immerse myself in a pool of feeling and inspiration rather than thought and fact, my ideas will begin to flourish.