Realize Your Creative Potential

开发你的创造潜能

The heart of all new ideas lies in the borrowing, adding, combining or modifying of old ones. Do it by accident and people call you lucky. Do it by design and they’ll call you creative. All of us have the ability to create ideas almost at will. The problem is to understand and utilize the processes that allow us to do it most efficiently and effectively.

新想法的形成，关键在于对旧思想的借用、补充、结合和修改。妙手偶得，是谓“幸运”；用心造就，则谓“创新”。我们每个人都能近乎随心所欲地创造出一些想法。问题是要能理解并运用那些能发挥我们最高效率、使我们的工作最富成效的方法步骤。

It is generally agreed that the act of developing new ideas involves some five steps.

一般而言，创造新想法的过程包括以下五个步骤。

First Insight. You have a problem you want to solve or an activity you want to do—you want a better job, the house needs redecorating, your company produces a waste material you would like to turn into a profitable byproduct. All of these are examples of first insight.

第一洞察力。解决某个问题，或参与某个活动的想法、意识即为第一洞察力。比如说，你渴望有一份更好的工作，想重新装修房子，或者，你想把公司产出的废料变废为宝。

Preparation. Now you investigate all the possible ways in which this germinal idea can be developed. Get as much information as you can about the subject, read, take notes, talk to others, ask questions, collect information. Be receptive to your own senses. Picasso once remarked, "The artist is a receptacle for emotions that come from all over the place, from the sky, from the earth, from a scrap of paper, from a passing shape, from spider's web.” These ideas form a springboard for launching our own imagination.

准备阶段。在这第二阶段，你应该运用一切可能的方法来发展尚处在萌芽状态的想法。你要搜集与主题相关的尽可能多的信息，阅读相关材料，记笔记，与他人交谈、提出问题。正如毕加索所言：“艺术家是各种情感的容器。这些情感来源各异。有的来自于天，有的来自于地，有的来自于一片纸屑，有的来自于一晃而过的身影，还有的，甚至来自于蜘蛛网。”在搜集信息、交流思想过程中得出的想法形成了一台动力机，让我们的想象力天马行空。

Incubation. Now let your subconscious take over. Take a walk, take a nap, take a bath, work on another project or hobby, sleep on it. As author Edna Ferber once noted, "A story must simmer in its own juice for months or even years before it's ready to serve."

沉淀期。接下来，就是你的潜意识的工作了。散散步，小睡一觉，洗个澡，转做另一项工作或者爱好，把问题留到第二天解决。女作家埃德娜·费勃曾指出：“一个故事正如一道菜，必须要在汁液里慢慢炖，炖上几个月，甚至几年，才能产出佳品。”

Illumination. This is the climax of the creative process. An insight pops into the mind, and suddenly everything falls into place. Charles Darwin gathered information for his theory of evolution. Then one day when he was riding in his carriage, it all came together. “I remember,” Darwin wrote, “ the very spot in the road when to my joy the solution occurred to me.” Illumination is the most exciting and joyous phase of creative process.
   灵光闪现。这是整个创新过程的高潮，也是最激动人心、令人高兴的阶段。在某一瞬间，计上心来，所有问题也随之迎刃而解。查尔斯·达尔文为其进化论搜集资料。突然有一天，正当他坐在马车上的时候，才思泉涌。达尔文写道：“我永远不会忘记，在那个地方，我惊喜地找到了解决方法。”

Verification. Yet for all of its wondrous insight, illumination can be terribly unreliable. Intellect and judgment are brought into play, and your hunches and inspirations are logically confirmed or denied. You back off and look at your ideas as objectively as possible. You solicit the opinion of others. You revise your good ideas to make them better and often come up with new and better insights in the process.

验证期。尽管才思泉涌，激动人心，但上一阶段很可能极不可靠。你应该发挥你的才智和判断力，从而各种猜想和灵感得以逻辑地验证或推翻。不要自我陶醉，而要尽可能客观地看待你的想法。另外，还要征求他人的意见。在上述过程中，你不断完善自己的想法，还经常能受到新的、更好的灵感启发。

Summing up, the key to understanding the creative cycle is to realize that there are five distinct phases. There is the initial desire to create, followed by a lengthy period of investigating and information gathering. Then there is the period of incubation where the subconscious takes over. This gives rise to the moment of illumination when the results of the subconscious efforts surfaces. And finally, there is a period of refining and verifying the ideas created.

总之，要理解创造循环，关键在于懂得其过程包括五个明确的阶段：一，最初的创造欲望；二，长期的调查研究和信息搜集；三，发挥潜意识，沉淀思想；四，灵感迸发；五，验证、改善。

In addition to giving yourself an incentive, you must also create a sense of urgency. There is a natural tendency to procrastinate in all of us. Create the necessary pressure by giving yourself reasonable but challenging deadlines for coming up with new ideas. Then be sure to stick to them.

此外，你还必须有一种紧迫感，以自我激励。我们每个人都可能想拖延，因此，要给自己必要的压力，即制定合理而富有挑战性的最后期限，并坚持到底。