11 Habits of Highly Innovative People

Great success stories depend on innovative and creative ideas, and then implementing them in a way no one else has achieved. These courageous revolutionaries change the way we interact with the world. They’re abandoning the tried-and-true and turning toward the what-if.

"The creation of something new is not accomplished by the intellect, but by the play instinct arising from inner necessity. The creative mind plays with the object it loves." - Carl Jung

Innovative people have to put action behind their ideas, just like the rest of us. So, what sets them apart as titans of industry? Today, we’re going to identify a few commonalities.

1. Go After Your Passion

People with a passion are intrinsically motivated to move toward their passion. This deep desire propels them toward their dreams.

They feel compelled to go hard after their passion, and get energy from the difficult challenges along the way. You won’t find that they’re the most talented in the group, but their persistent dedication to the goal makes everything worth it.

People get lazy because external motivation matters the most. They need rewards, fame, praise, or prestige to keep going. If you want to live an innovative life, it’s time to get passionate.

2. Track Your Ideas

Look at a creative person and you’ll notice that they obsessively take notes. Writing things down is a great habit for you experience a stroke of genius. Because, as every innovative person knows, a great idea, if ignored, will never be remembered.

Take a note from the experts and start jotting down your insights. If you write it down, you can go back and put it into action later.

3. Gain Knowledge and Experience

You can’t just wait around for inspiration to strike, and the most innovative creatives to understand this. They know you need to study new things, take in new experiences, and learn from the perspectives of others. Creativity takes fuel, and it’s your job to keep the tank full.

Read books, listen to podcasts, explore your town, travel the world, learn an instrument, visit art museums… These are just a few places where you can uncover life-changing ideas.

4. Question Everything

Those who innovate, ask questions. They want to understand the world and will ask as many questions as necessary to get there. The imagination gets stimulated with possibilities when we start to question the world around us. It’s why you’ll see creative constantly analyzing, examining and investigating things -- including their own products and/or services.

They don’t shy away from digging deeper to understand. This often causes them to excel in understanding the customer’s desires, needs, and motivations. It’s all about seeing the other perspective and challenging the status quo along the way.

5. Beautify Your Environment

Our atmosphere influences creativity in a major way. It can mean the difference between finding flow or becoming blocked. If you want more innovation in your life, start with your environment.

Set up your living AND working space in a relaxing and inspiring style. You should feel at ease in these spaces. This frees your mind and gives it the freedom to wander and think. What makes you feel this way is different for everyone, so it’s important to consider what works best for you.

6. Break Free

The beliefs you hold will set the path of our life. They’ll serve as obstacles and roadblocks, or they can skyrocket us to new heights. To achieve real innovation, we have to set ourselves free from inhibitions. It’s time to let go of the old, limiting beliefs that set you back.

Self-limiting beliefs come from our fears and manifest as excuses and negativity. We limit ourselves potential through internal talk like, I can’t… I’m not… I don’t…

By staying here, you become glued to your comfort zone.

Innovative people, on the other hand, don’t let themselves get stuck in a rut. They’re always trying to break free, adapt, and find new ways of experiencing the world.

7. Practice Creativity

It’ not enough to just expect inspiration from above. Those who come up with good ideas are always finding ways to practice their creativity. They understand revolutionary concepts require a period of incubation. You’ve got to let it stew over in the subconscious a bit.

Highly innovative people are scheduling in meditation and brainstorming into their day. They have patience with themselves AND with the creative process.

8. Notice Patterns

Our planet is full of complex connections and patterns. Most let the days pass without noticing how it all works together, but not an innovative person. No, they’re out there spotting the relationships between places and people, and between points and data.

An innovative person wants to understand the meaning within the order. After all, the only way to know how to make things better is to see how they can be improved.

That’s why they keep an eye out for small, easily-overlooked details. They’re keeping an eye on people… what makes them excited, angry, happy or sad. All these patterns, connections and relationships inform their ideas and ability to innovate.

9. Pursue Multiple Interests

A truly great innovator doesn’t feel satisfied while focusing on just one project. They’re itching to chase several ventures and interests, which may (or may not) support one another.

Onlookers may peg these types as unfocused and unable to stop bouncing from one project to the next. But this isn’t about distraction, it’s about multipotentiality.

Basically, they have too many EXCEPTIONAL potentials.

… We should all have such difficult problems. ;-)

11. Take Things Apart

Innovators want to know how everything works. You’ll find them dabbling and tinkering. They’re the kids taking something apart, and then putting it back together with a 2.0 improvement.

And this isn’t just about physical inventions. Think about how a jazz musician deconstructs a blues scale, and then reconstructs it into an impressive solo. This is also a type of innovation, and something creative people invest in every day.