Creativity: Its All In The Mind

Creativity is freewheeling, imaginative thinking that leads to fresh insights and revolutionary ideas and even comes up with useful products. It puts old ideas of familiar things together in a different way. A management consultant would define creativity as the ability to generate new options.

What flows from our imagination does not have to be aesthetically pleasing or glamorous - indeed, one can be creatively involved with an activity most people find dull. A creative tax consultant would come up with new ways to approach the tax returns, keeping well within the law and saving his client’s money.

Unlike artistic talent, creativity is a quality anyone can develop. Whenever we let our thoughts wander and muse, ‘What if…?’ we push our mind to travel beyond the accepted and familiar. Such daydreaming is the source of much of the creativity in our lives. When we come up with a better or easier way to do our job, we are being creative.

If our ancestors had not asked, ‘What if…?’ they would not have turned stones into tools and cultivated food crops from wild plants. No growth would have occurred if everybody had done things the way they had been done before. Creative developers led us to the industrial revolution, the computer age, the exploration of space…

Most of us have probably wondered whether or not we can be creative, and many of us may not be sure how to develop and apply whatever imaginative abilities we possess. We must remind ourselves here that the creative person is made, not born.

The most important and probably the only difficult step in becoming creative is to let our mind wander and operate in illogical ways. Of course, all of us have been taught to do just the opposite – to think logically, to concentrate, to keep our mind from drifting away from the subject and to avoid thinking or doing things that don’t make sense.

In the case of advertisements, the ones that you remember would obviously mean that they are successful with the audience, and you will notice that they are bound to be the ones that do not tell you anything logical about the product advertised. For instance, chocolate advertisements do not discuss the taste of the chocolate! It goes to show that when you think typically, you stay on a narrow track, but when you let yourself go wild, you come up with great ideas.

The business world has recognised the value of associate thinking in its adoption of a technique called brainstorming. A group of workers who are familiar with the problem get together and toss off whatever ideas that pop into their heads, no matter how wild or irrational. Absolutely no critical comments or judgments are allowed until the brainstorming session is over.    

But then brainstorming does not necessarily require a group; you can do it on your own by simply listing the ideas that pop into your head, without stopping to think.

You might try another very productive technique. Grapple with the problem for a while and then turn away from it completely and start doing something relaxing, like working in the garden, taking a bath, watching a movie. Almost invariably, the solution would pop up from the subconscious mind during the relaxed period. Believe me it really works!

Another good way to loosen the creative spirit in ourselves is to visualize. Not to think in words, but to think in pictures. Use metaphors comparing one object or event to another and noting the unexpected similarities in dissimilar things. If the thoughts are not visual, they could be sensual – rousing to the ear or to the sense of touch or taste.

Developing aesthetic sense is also required to increase creativity. A creative person notices the leaves of the tree and stars in the sky. One must learn to react to colour, form and texture. One must feel more intensely, trust the heart not the head.

However, none of the techniques would work unless there is a strong base of knowledge of the area in which you’d like to create, be it business, designing or writing.

Creativity doesn’t blossom overnight. Most people spend many years learning the subject and then make their innovations. They are interested in many areas and have a rich fund of general knowledge. They do not care much for the standard answers and tend to follow their own instincts. They are persistent, pursuing a problem from different angles until they solve it.

So creativity requires flexible thinking that most people, although they may not know it, possess to some degree. Creativity can be cultivated, just decide what you want to do, what your project or your problem is. Be positive in your attitude. Learn all you can about your subject, more than you think you’ll need. Think, relax, and review your ideas. Make changes and additions, variations until you come up with your best. Put your ideas to test. There you are! You have found the solution – that is creativity.