How to develop an everyday creative thinking habit
Let’s agree that creative thinking is an ability we all possess.
Remember when you were a kid and you could wrestle with dragons or imagine yourself playing soccer for example in front of thousands of people?
You still have this ability.
You can dream, imagine, play, ask annoying why questions until the cows come home.
Many people have just stopped using this inate ability.
As a result they have lost confidence in their own creative thinking.
And have unfortunately equated creativity with the ability to dance or sing (only) for example.
These of course are expressions of creativity but the ability to think of new and useful ideas is a much broader and embracing definition.
So…
We need to rebuild our individual and collective creativity.
Or what I call everyday creative thinking.
But we run into another barrier.
When we think of creativity we often associate this with Einstein, Da Vinci, Lady Gaga or Steve Jobs for example.
Amazing individuals who generated breakthrough ideas and products.
But this means that creative thinking for many people has become too big and out of reach.
It’s much better (I believe) to think about creative thinking as a skill that can be developed through practice, motivation and practice – every day!
Everyday creative thinking.
It means you look to practice it every day.
And by doing so you soon build an everyday creative thinking habit.
How?
– By asking 1 original question a day in any of your meetings
– Generating a usual, different and radical set of ideas to a problem – starting today.
– Bouncing a new approach off a trusted colleague for a few minutes
– Doing something uncomfortable every day this week however small
– Setting aside 1% of your time today to thinking differently (i.e. approx. five minutes)
– Try and connect two things that don’t normally go together when faced with a new challenge
– Try Speed Thinking with a colleague
– Reflect on each day as you travel home – ask yourself what could I do differently next time?
The key point is this.
You can become better at creative thinking.
But like any skill you need to practice it – every day.
Just start.
Start small.
But start – today.