Creativity and discipline are sometimes seen as incompatible.
You’re either a creative person and you create when the inspiration comes, or you’re a disciplined person and you execute daily, you make a process and ignore the emotions.
But should we be one thing or the other? What if you put them together?
You then get the most creative and prolific person. Seth Godin has written a blog post every day for more than 20 years. And the same goes for comedians, painters, musicians, business people…
I recently read “Skip the Line: Ingenious, Simple Strategies to Propel Yourself to Wealth, Success and Happiness“ by James Altucher.
And I was touched again by a powerful but straightforward idea. I say again because I already made an entry in my journal in May 2019 based on a blog post written by James. I used this technique from time to time, but I missed a critical point — the discipline of implementation.
James Altucher is known as an entrepreneur, writer, stand-up comedian, chess player, investor…We can credit him for his creativity.
Photo by Patrick Tomasso on Unsplash
So what is the technique?
He calls it “THE POSSIBILITY MUSCLE”, and as often with good ideas, is deceptively simple.
Take a topic you are interested in and ask yourself a question. Just write your ten ideas. And from there, start to execute on your best one. The advantage is that you move quickly on to action. And that supports the concept of the whole book. Experiment, fail quickly and keep what works.
A few examples from the author…
10 people I can send ideas to
10 businesses I can do related to coronavirus
10 ways I can save time
10 things I’m interested in getting better at (and then 10 ways I can get better at each one)
“The point is not to have good ideas all the time. The point is just exercise. Exercise that idea muscle. Then you will be more creative.”
“After using these techniques for just three months, I felt as if my entire brain had been rewired. It was like seeing the world in dimensions and colors I didn’t even know existed—a world colored with possibilities that were always there but that I’d never noticed before”
James has been doing it every day for 18 years…What about trying it for a week?
What are your ten ideas to implement this new habit? 😀
Enjoy it.
Mr. OTG
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