Big Think recently posted an interesting video with Beau Lotto, a neuroscientist.
We often look at creative people and are amazed by the leaps of their discoveries. But, according to Beau Lotto, the mind can only take very small steps in connecting prior knowledge to address the unknow, the why, the what-if.
So when creative people seemingly take big leaps and come up with amazing discoveries or creative solutions, they have in fact just processed a (sometimes long) series of existing knowledge -> testing assumptions of unknown -> new knowledge -> testing new assumptions, until there are no more unknown areas and new, and creative, knowledge has been acquired.
Understanding that creative solutions can only come from bridging the gaps between what you already know and the problems you want to solve in a series of small steps, should make you stop waiting for the epiphany to happen.
Instead, build your awareness of where you want to go and start closing the gaps by testing your assumptions of what you don’t know. Because that’s how you become more creative.
If you want to know more, Beau Lotto has also held a couple of TEDx talks.