Step 1: Increase your diversity of inputs
If you love design, don't just read design blogs. Read about psychology, architecture, cooking, music, science. The point is to branch out.
It doesn't have to be reading—it could be music, food, travel, conversations with people outside your field. Cross-pollination of ideas is where creativity lives.
Step 2: Ignore your first interpretation
When you read an article or listen to a song, you'll have an immediate reaction: "Oh, this is what this means." Then you move on.
Instead, pause and ask: "Okay, I can see how this is one way to look at it, but what's another way I could look at it? And another?"
The first answer is rarely the most interesting one.
Step 3: Try new mediums
This means your expression or application of ideas. If you really enjoy writing, try learning an instrument. If you enjoy playing music, try writing. If you enjoy dance, try singing.
Something different.
New mediums force your brain to make new connections. They reveal blind spots in how you think and express yourself.
Step 4: Look after yourself
Your body and your environment matter more than you think.
Eat better. Exercise. Take care of yourself. Keep your environment clean and harmonious. A cluttered space creates a cluttered mind.
Creativity doesn't emerge from exhaustion. It emerges from a well-rested, well-nourished brain with margin to wander.
Step 5: Remove your biases
Labels, limiting beliefs, bureaucracies, cultural conditioning—things that make you think "This is how I feel, but I shouldn't because this label says I can't."
These keep you boxed in, unable to fully express yourself. Question the assumptions you didn't know you were making.
Step 6: Improve your circumstances
Good communities and friends. The technologies you use. All the environmental factors that support your intelligence and help you expand, be more diverse, and learn from your experiences.
You are the average of your inputs. Choose them carefully.
Intelligence isn't about being the smartest person in the room. It's about being curious enough to keep learning, humble enough to change your mind, and brave enough to think differently.