CREATIVE THINKING

Description:

Creative thinking skills are not taught. They do not require intelligence or even experience, although these qualities are needed to put creative ideas into practice.

Creativety is the result of right-brain activity - intuition, insight, inspiration, which is not readily encouraged in the education system.

Indeed, such thought processes are often suppressed in favor of left-brain activities - logic, analysis and judgments .

BLOCKS TO CREATIVITY :

Would-be creative thinkers mistakenly blame ‘blocks’ to their thought processes. Here are some of them:

-Only clever, successful or artistic people can be creative.

-You need to suffer hardship and pain to be truly creative (artist starving in the garret).

-Only young people have creative ideas .

-Time, money and effort are needed; creative thinking is a luxury most of us can’t afford .

-It’s only for men/women/the birds.

Everyone has an imagination which is the fuel for creative thinking. It is negative thinking which stops the creative process.

-Be hungry for information; read, read and read more .

-Take up crafts and hobbies (you don’t have to be good at them).

-Write, scribble, draw, design whatever comes into your head (often one idea leads to other better ideas).

-Brainstorm ideas with others .

-Put yourself under reasonable pressure by setting goals and targets (caution: undue pressure leads to panic and stops the creative flow) .

-Talk to children: often they make unusual associations between ideas (peanut butter and carrots, choc-ice and chips...).

You’ve been offered a unique chance to take a six-month sabbatical. You want to spend the time creatively but don’t quite know how. Try this exercise:

1. Take yourself off to somewhere peaceful with some blank sheets of paper and coloured pens .

2. Jot down or draw different ideas as they come to you.

3. Do this over a few days until you run out of ideas .

4. Look for links between them .

5. Take the most promising idea and develop it further.

6. Now select one of these new ideas and expand on it.

7. Repeat this exercise until your creative juices dry up Stimulating creative thought processes needs some effort:.

95% perspiration, 5% inspiration.

For those of you who believe that creative thinking is a luxury you can’t afford and you should really be spending your time on an MBA, remember what Albert Einstein said:

Creative Thinking Updates