Get Creative Thinking Skills In 5 Easy Steps

When it comes to Creative Thinking Skills most of us overlook it’s importance, thinking “well, don’t we all have it naturally?”…and no, unfortunately not all of us “have it”!

In this article, I would like to discuss how is it that we “lose” our creativity and why is it so important to re-train it, develop it and regain it for our personal and professional lives.

There are several creative thinking techniques that you’d be well advised to adopt in order to have a creative mind.

Where Do Creative Thinking Skills Begin?

It begins when you are born! Every child is a natural creative researcher of life. So the question is where did it disappear?

But we won’t go into it right now, because we want to discover where Creative Thinking training begins today for you.

What is the State of a Creative Mind?

A Creative mind is an internal environment of your mind where new things, new ideas, new thoughts, new outlooks, can form up.

In other words, a creative mind needs a home, and that home is a state of mind of a particular kind.  As adults, we need to rediscover it, because the style of life we live has “shut it off” in many instances.

It is great to watch children and see them enjoy the kind of freedom they have in their mind and (before the adult world condition’s them to “behave”) how they go about the business of creativity, the attitude they have, the lightness of heart, the “forgive and forget” attitude, the not taking themselves too seriously, the “letting go” that adults have lost, and so much more.

A creative thinking state of mind needs all these child-like features.

Creativity and Innovation, Creative Thinking, Problem Solving, and Emotional Intelligence are natural to the human.

We are all born with these skills. It seems like we need to learn it, but it is only a matter of rediscovering the conditions where they can appear.

That’s the good news, you have it somewhere in you!

The bad news is that most business environments discourage creativity and instead resort to command and control business style, which, I might add, is obsolete and counterproductive to business excellence.

What is The Place of The Ego in All This?

The ego tends to take over Creative Thinking by minimizing what it doesn’t know and being bombastic about what it does know.

So, for starters, try to give up being the “all-knowing” adults who are so sure of themselves, which equates everything new with what it already knows. (In these changing times beware of the words “there is nothing new under the sun”!)

The “I Know” state of mind is a CLOSED state of mind. It is closed to new knowledge and does not pursue innovation or Creative Thinking – why should it?

It thinks it already knows what there is to know.

Many people think that way, but they’ll never admit it. Such admission would be a Creative Thinking attitude for them, which they deny by having an outsized ego!

Yes, admitting to imperfections and humane vulnerability is unique and creative these days.

The ego represents the identity we created, which is based on PAST accomplishments. There is no “food” for the ego in what it doesn’t know so it camps conveniently in what was.

The ego doesn’t have any knowledge of what is happening live in the now and doesn’t know how to think about the future, other than being sure what it thinks will happen.

In other words, your ego represents the past while a Creative Thinking State of Mind belongs to the present and the future.

If you want to have new ideas, look at things differently, accept the unknown, and become bright and curious-minded….

Live each day as if it was your last! For Real!

Now, you’ve heard these words before, haven’t you?

Perhaps the context of Creative Thinking will open the door for new perceptions and provide for you an outlet away from the monotonous “same old” that bogs you down.

The price…give up your ego as your leader, which means no preconditions or biased views allowed, especially if you are a leader and you hear yourself saying the fatal words “that’s how we always do business”.

Do you think you can do that?

In summation, to let go of your ego as a dominant force in your life is to make space in your mind for new ideas and new views that may transform what you know to a whole new level.

It is the absolute condition for Creative Thinking Skills to thrive.

How to Give Up Judgment?

In order to have these skills, you need to be aware of your habit of judging. Most people judge most of the things they see, most of the time.  It’s a habit and not a positive one.

The attitude of judgment (of yourself and others) and Creative Thinking don’t go together.

Judgment is a closed state of mind whereas Creative Thinking is open, and open means to take into consideration new knowledge without judging it according to what you think.

As has been pointed out before, Creativity is the most natural state for humans.

Yet, by majority most people allow themselves to drift away and become creatures of habit and thereby relinquish the spirit of newness and discovery.

The whole idea of being a judge is toxic in its core. One may have views and opinions, but these views are limited to their own understanding and perceptions which may be valid or not.

Instead of judgment, it is best to adapt assessment which is an important Critical Thinking Skills and Strategic Thinking Skills.

The difference between the two is that assessment evaluates situations based on facts, reasons, principles, big picture relevance and proposition.

Whereas judgment is based on one thing only which is what we have thought before about any particular issue which we consider to be the criterion for everything and everyone else, (this is the major reason for most conflicts).

Therefore, resist the temptation to judge, and how to do that is very simple…STOP IT!

Let It Go, Consciously, every time it rears its ugly head, which may be often.

What You Get from The Thinking Coach Training Seminars

As a Life Coach for the pro’s I conduct seminars and workshops on a variety of soft skills and none would be complete without a Creative Thinking Skills Workshop.

When you participate in one of these workshops this is a taste of what you and your team get:

1.    Professionals become better Thinkers.

2.    The overall atmosphere in the organization changes, very often, from hard, short-term to soft long-term with much better productivity all around.

3.    People are more willing to assume personal responsibility and take ownership.

4.    The narrative in the organization changes from personal negative to collective positive with increasing team building consciousness.

5.    People are happier to come to work EVERY DAY!

6.    There is a gradual improvement in bridging the disconnect between the leadership and the workforce.

7.    The organization becomes much more competitive outwardly, and much more steady inwardly.

8.    The level of inter-personal communication improves without yesterday’s limits.

9.    Women become empowered and together with the men, become a collective team and a professional force to reckon with.

I hope this article has “tickled” your creative mind and stirred in you a child-like desire to open your mind to the wonderful possibilities these sets of skills can bring to you both on a personal and professional level.

Be sure to reach out to me and don’t be shy to enquire!

Eli Harari

The Life Coach for Professionals™

 

Images courtesy of Pixabay, Pexel, Unsplash, Flickr, Pxhere, MaxPixel.