Learning to be Creative

Much of the thinking done in formal education emphasizes the skills of analysis--teaching students how to understand claims, follow or create a logical argument, figure out the answer, eliminate the incorrect paths and focus on the correct one. However, there is another kind of thinking, one that focuses on exploring ideas, generating possibilities, looking for many right answers rather than just one which is creative thinking.

Explorers tend to have difficulty with organizing, and to be good at creative thinking. So let's spend a small part of our time working at getting somewhat organized, and a large part of our time practicing being very creative.

Some people are just creative – they don’t train themselves to think like they do and they often don’t even know that they are any different from the rest of us – it’s just who they are. However I believe that we can all enhance our ability to be creative over time. If you want to be more creative in everything you do, you need to know these three important concepts namely seeing things differently, Incubating and silencing the inner critic. Knowing these concepts will help you to come up with new ideas and solutions which in turn will gain more respect and admiration from your peers.

The first requirement to improve your creativity is to see what others are not seeing or at least to make an attempt to see things from a different perspective. Average people who face problems stop when they can't come up with a known fix from top of their heads but creative people go beyond that and force their brains to think about alternate ways.

This constant practice of forcing their brains helps them to make new connections with often unrelated subjects. It also helps them to come up with what others often call 'brilliant' ideas.

Most of these creative people knowingly or unknowingly follow a technique called 'incubation'. After they have sufficiently tried to exercise their brains to come up with solutions they forget about it and do something else.

An outside observer may think they just gave up since they couldn't think of any better ideas. But a person who knows how the brain works will tell you that they did not give up but simply handed over the problem to their loyal servant - the sub-conscious mind. The sub-conscious mind works vigorously at the back of their minds when their conscious mind is involved in something else.

Once the sub-conscious mind has worked out a solution. It then passes the ideas to the conscious mind and that's when these people have those 'light bulb' moments. Another important requirement to improve your creativity, is to silence the inner critic. This guy sits in your brain so to speak and is ready to jump at the first chance to tell you "why something won't work" or "how no one has tried that before".

Before you rule out any idea as impossible take some time to find ways to make it possible. Often times we do the exact opposite we rule out an idea and think about reasons to justify our decisions. If we only concentrate more rather than act mechanically we can solve a lot of problems and come up with good ideas. So, the next time when you want to think creatively ask these 3 questions: 1. Am I seeing things from a different angle? 2. Am I incubating for ideas? and finally 3. Have I asked the inner critic to be quiet for sometime?.

By following this simple procedure you can come up with some good ideas in future.

If You Think You Can, You Can

Some people think, well maybe the problem can be solved by some expert, but not by me because I'm not (a) smart enough, (b) an engineer, or (c) a blank (whether educated, expert, etc.) Again, though, look at the history of problem solving.

Who were the Wright brothers that they could invent an airplane? Aviation engineers? No, they were bicycle mechanics. The ball point pen was invented by a printer's proofreader, Ladislao Biro, not a mechanical engineer. Major advances in submarine design were made by English clergyman G. W. Garrett and by Irish schoolmaster John P. Holland. The cotton gin was invented by that well known attorney and tutor, Eli Whitney. The fire extinguisher was invented by a captain of militia, George Manby.

And so on. In fact, a major point made by recent writers about corporate excellence is that innovations in industry almost always come from individuals (not research groups) outside of the area of the invention. General Motors invented Freon, the refrigeration chemical, and tetraethyl lead, the gasoline additive. Kodachrome was invented by two musicians. The continuous steel casting process was invented by a watchmaker (fooling around with brass casting). Soap making chemists turned down the problem of inventing synthetic detergents: those detergents were invented by dye making chemists.

In a nutshell, a good mind with a positive attitude and some good problem solving skills will go far in solving any problem. Interest in and commitment to the problem are the keys. Motivation--a willingness to expend the effort--is more important than laboratory apparatus. And remember that you can always do something. Even if you cannot totally eradicate the problem from the face of the earth, you can always do something to make the situation better.