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The Weird Strategy Dr. Seuss Used to Create His Greatest Work (And Why You Should Use It Too)
Constraints have benefits
- Limitations inspire you to find creative solutions. If you have a one-year-old child that requires all your time, you have to find creative ways to get some exercise.
- Constraints force you to get something done. Without constraints, we would postpone our tasks, sometimes indefinitely.
That is why professionals set a schedule for their production while amateurs wait for the perfect moment.
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The challenge
In 1960, Theo Geisel, known as Dr. Seuss, was challenged to write an entertaining children's book using only 50 different words. The result was the best-selling book, Green Eggs and Ham. It sold over 200 million copies.
The Power of Constraints
Dr. Seuss discovered while writing his book "Green Eggs and Ham" the power of setting constraints.
Setting limits for yourself (time, money, words, etc.) often leads to better results than if you keep your options open.
Constraints have benefits
- Limitations inspire you to find creative solutions. If you have a one-year-old child that requires all your time, you have to find creative ways to get some exercise.
- Constraints force you to get something done. Without constraints, we would postpone our tasks, sometimes indefinitely.
That is why professionals set a schedule for their production while amateurs wait for the perfect moment.
Constraints are Not the Enemy
We often complain about our limitations. "I don't have enough time." or "I don't have enough money." Every artist has a limited set of tools to create with. Every entrepreneur has limited resources to work with.
Constraints don't hamper you. Once you know your constraints, you can find out how to work with them.
Your limitations
- You only have half an hour to exercise? That is your limitation. Put those 30 minutes to proper use.
- Can you only spare 15 minutes each day to write? That is the size of your constraint. Your job is to make it a work of art.
- You only have $100 to start your business? Great! Make each sales call work for you.
We can complain about our limits or use them. How you use that constraint is up to you.
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Creativity
While being creative isn't easy, nearly all great ideas follow a sim...
The 5 Step Creative Process
- Gather new material directly related to your task as well as learning general material by becoming fascinated with a wide range of concepts.
- Thoroughly work over the materials in your mind. Examine what you have learned by looking at the facts from different angles and experimenting with fitting various ideas together.
- Step away from the problem. Next, you put the problem completely out of your mind and go do something else that excites you and energizes you.
- Let your idea return to you. After you have stopped thinking about it, your idea will come back to you with a flash of insight and renewed energy.
- Shape and develop your idea based on feedback. For any idea to succeed, you must release it out into the world, submit it to criticism, and adapt it as needed.
Creativity is learned
Some people are primed to be more creative than others.
However, nearly every person is born with some level of creative skill and the majority of our creative thinking abilities are trainable.
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Past Deciding The Future
We let our knowledge and experiences of the past project into our future, by making concrete predictions that this or that cannot happen due to what happened in the past.
But life is constant...
Learned Helplessness
This is a mental state where, as a result of a certain bad experience, we believe that we can’t do anything about a certain problem.
Negative Motivation
We can start to feel helpless when we see people fail in a certain plan, and this could start acting as a negative motivation in our minds.
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Understand your limitations
Burnout occurs when job demands consistently outweigh the resources available. The first thing you need to do is to set proper limits.
When you limit your time spent on specific tasks,...
Learn to say no
... especially to projects and clients that suck the creativity out of you.
When your mental resources are limited, you need to make sure they’re going to the right tasks. Burnout decimates your motivation, making working on projects you’re uninterested in an agonizing process.
Finding a creative outlet
Find a completely unrelated creative outlet: look for a creative task with lower stakes to help ease you back into things and re-ignite your creativity and motivation.
What are the things in your own life that you enjoy but aren’t necessarily “productive”?
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