Top 10 Ways to Stay Creative for Decades

One of the best pieces of advice I ever got was 'take the time to suck.'

It isn't easy maintaining the passion and courage necessary to be the ever-growing creative person that remains in demand throughout the convoluted machinations of decades of technological development. You need things to keep you fresh, keep you interested. These are my top 10 methods. Let me know your tips in the comments!

1. Copy other (better) artists. For centuries artists have been copying the Mona Lisa and other masterworks. You want to learn everything about the work you're copying, including the artist him or herself. This goes for design. This goes for music. You learn from deep, intensive study of something, which comes easiest when duplicating it.These pieces will never make it into your portfolio, but the concepts and techniques will!
2. Don't work from a blank canvas. A big blank white rectangle is like kryptonite to creativity. Your brain is designed to build off of patterns. In illustration that means start laying down lines or textures. In design that means pulling in images and text and colors you like and then mucking about with them to make a layout and design you like.  
3. Put yourself and your work out there. Don't sit in your room thinking yourself a genius. Don't get comfy with your career and just plug away. Be active in your community. It will help you learn when you're starting and it will help you break out of your rut when you're experienced. Particularly when you're young, however, you must overcome your fear of being judged. Really your work is being judged, but it sure feels like you are as a person. Get over it. To be a designer or an artist is to be judged, constantly, all the time. The sooner you get out there and get constructive feedback the better you'll be.
4. Seek out experts in your field. As much as you can, find people who are good at those things you want to be good at, and try to see if they'll offer you tips, feedback, or even paintovers. These folks have great knowledge, but remember that they're often in demand. If you can find a good forum go on there and post your work. A lot of times good artists will give you feedback there. I used to be on sijun.com a lot and got feedback and paintovers from amazing artists like Ron Lemen and Craig Mullins.
5. Seek out the competition. Your competition, those working in the fields you're looking to work in, will show you what sorts of things are in demand, what sorts of things are good to have in your portfolio. As you go through your career they'll show you the latest trends, give you new ideas, and generally enhance your understanding of your field. It's all collaborative, even when it isn't.
6. Attend events and talk to people. A lot of artists are introverted, but that's not gonna help you in your career. Again, everything is collaborative, and attending expos and meetups will introduce you to other professionals, the presentations can inspire and educate you, and the businesses represented can be  potential employers. Generally they're highly motivational.
7. Travel is one of the most important things you can do to feed your creative spark. Things are different in other parts of the world. The more different you feel, the more new ways you'll see things. It's nearly impossible to come home without a boatload of ideas and photos for new designs and artwork. On top of this it's just great to get away and stop doing deadline work under pressure. When you relax you'll have lots of ideas.
8. One of the best pieces of advice I ever got was 'take the time to suck.' In other words, experiment. I can affirm that this is huge. Working without the pressure of trying to make something pretty or conform to the rules of composition or the latest design standards allows you to experiment freely. You'll discover wonderful things that you would never have if you had just 'obeyed the rules' all the time. Chaos leads to creation.
9. I would encourage you, for both practical and emotional reasons, to pursue multidisciplinary interests. These can be ones related to design and art, they can be other creative pursuits like music, or they can be unrelated, like martial arts or cooking. The Chinese have a list of something like 63 creative arts. The idea is that the more of these you enjoy, the more fulfilled your life will be. More pertinently, the more you exercise the creative muscle in different ways, the better it will work in every way. Professionally it is always valuable to develop diverse skills. If you can design and program, you'll be in high demand. If you can design, program, and do user experience design, you'll be wealthy.  
10. Be healthy. This means eating pretty well, getting rest, relaxation, exercise, and time away. You need to take breaks to keep going in the long haul. The design world can be exhausting and you need your A game. You'll be able to keep it up while you're young, skipping sleep in order to make it. This is fine. But don't overdo it. Don't lose yourself. Go out on weekends. See the sun. See friends. Date. Marry, have a family. As Ferris Bueller said, life moves pretty fast. If you don't stop and look around once in awhile, you might miss it.