Think Creative

Everybody is creative!   If you think that you are not creative, you are terribly wrong. The mere fact that you are not using creativity in your every day life does not mean that you do not have it in you. Maybe your creativity needs some encouragement; maybe you need to learn a few techniques to unleash it; maybe you simply need to free some room in your life for creativity, some time that you can spend alone with your Creative Self and let creative things happen by themselves. To prove to you that you are creative, I will ask you a simple question: Have you ever been in a situation where you had to improvise in order to achieve something?  It does not matter whether your improvisation was a success or not. I am sure that your answer is:  Yes . If so, that means that you have it inside - the act of improvising is in fact the act of being creative. Not every painting is a master piece, therefore not every improvisation needs to be great. The important thing is that ...

Creativity is the process in which all you previous knowledge, emotions and personal experiences combine with the traditional ideas, rules and patterns to generate new and original ideas, possibilities and alternatives that bring value to yourself but more importantly, to other people. This value can be some help in solving practical problems, help in communication with others or it can have entertaining or spiritual purpose.  In fact, it is very difficult to find the precise definition of creativity because for the creative people 2+2 almost never equals 4. Every person is creative for himself/herself and every person will tell you his/her definition of creativity and why they find it valuable. I asked myself, why is creativity so important for me?  Here is why I am so attracted to Mademoiselle Creativity. Creativity is a way of expressing myself Throughout my life I have always felt strong need to engage in one or another artistic activity. There were periods when ...

We live in the culture that is saturated with information so putting your message through requires lots of effort and creativity. The easiest way to be spotted in the information clutter is to be different. And being different is often erroneously labelled as being creative. One of the most important characteristics of successful thinkers is their ability to focus. How many times has it happened to you that you spent some time and energy thinking about something and you ended up with a bunch of interesting ideas on all other problems except on the one that you had actually been required to think about? This will happen every time unless you manage to maintain a clear focus on the subject that you are thinking about. The world is full of so called artists and creatives who are struggling to be different and unique. They are sometimes strangely odd and bizarre in their appearance, behaviour and attitudes without firm arguments that could back up their extremely different views...

Sometimes it takes just one moment in your life to have your entire creative future completely destroyed. Like when the art teacher looked at your favourite drawing and said: ’Ok, I’ll give you a passing mark although you will never be able to make a decent drawing.’ Or when your grand dad said: ’What the hell do you need a guitar for? You don’t make big bucks playing the guitar!!!’ There were also times when you were constantly discouraged from developing your creativity due to wrong attitudes of people who should have supported you most, like your friends or members of your family. We have all met people who would tell us that we were not good enough, or creative enough, people who had better ideas for us and our future. And then you grow up to become what you are right now, and you always feel a bit nostalgic about those days when you had high hopes for you becoming a successful astronaut or artist. You still feel the urge to do something creative in your life but now there are...

Each of us has his or her particular mode of thinking, which is quite normal because we are all different and unique. Our own mode of thinking determines the perception of the world that we have in our mind, actions we are likely to take, and eventually, the kind of life that we are going to have. Stepping out from your mode of thinking is difficult but not impossible. One of the worst thinkings that you can have about yourself is the one that you are not creative. It may well be that your mind is not accustomed to making lateral connections that will help you generate new ideas, but it still does not mean that you are not creative!  There are many techniques that can help you improve your thinking. Here is one of them. It will not help you become an exceptionally creative businessman like Steve Jobs or a prodigious artist like Picasso, but it might help you learn how to think for a moment like those two guys. Like I said, it is extremely difficult to break away from our usual ...

Global economy is going through a change and it is very probable that in future we will witness creation of  new economy models  that will have their effect on the existing, no longer sustainable distribution of wealth and power. In this rapidly changing future, small and middle size companies will have to embrace creativity and innovation if they want to stay in the game and remain the leading force of any country’s economy. In the near future, having visionaries and innovators in the team will become the key asset for any successful company. You may well argue that it is not that easy to find such people, that they belong to a small group of exceptionally talented individuals and that if it was easy  to think like  Bill Gates, Steve Jobs or  Mark Zuckerberg,  every company would be like Microsoft, Apple, or Facebook. And yes, you are absolutely right. You will hardly be able to find someone like them in the human resources market.  The trick is n...

Now that I have caught your attention with this catchy headline, I will have to correct myself and rephrase it into:  How to Get Creative Ideas from a Team That is Not Familiar with Using Their Creativity . I firmly believe that each and every one of us is creative - it’s just that there are those who use their creative potentials and  those who believe that they are not creative . If you think that your employees are not creative enough, you should ask yourself why is it so?  The most common reasons are because: -     they do not have the opportunity to be creative  - nobody ever asks them for their opinion, they are only required to follow the rules and procedures; -     they do not have courage to express their ideas  – they fear that they are not creative enough; -     they are not motivated to be creative  – nobody listens and appreciates their ideas;  when they speak their minds their ideas ...

Whenever you are trying to think of a new idea you are actually setting off across a new and unexplored sea of thoughts inside your mind. On your journey you fight with high waves that throw your thinking in various directions, sea monsters that try to devour your inspiration, sirens who aim to distract you from being productive and pirates who want to steal away your ideas.  Think for a moment of yourself as a great sea explorer like  Columbus, Cook, Drake or Magellan. Those guys had courage, stamina and knowledge that took them to their desired destinations.  One of the basic skills they had to learn before even intending to board their ships was to read the stars. Just like the stars helped them navigate their ships to reach new shores,  well defined focus   statement  will guide your thoughts towards new and undiscovered ideas. Without the right focus your thinking will be futile. You may be capable of producing many ideas, but how many of them will...

Design thinking is a term that was frequently used in contemporary design and engineering but as the global market is going through financial turmoil, many businesses adopt it in search of new and innovative solutions that will help them survive and stay competitive. Design thinking can be described as an action-based thinking that focuses on new solutions and not on existing problems.  It seeks to improve future results through the ability to grasp the context of the current situation, use of creative thinking to generate ideas and rational thinking to decide upon objectives, implementation and evaluation methods of the adopted solutions. It differs both from scientific and artistic creative thinking.  Scientific thinking starts with analysis of all parameters of a problem in order to define solution while artistic thinking is most often abstract and concerned with emotional and symbolic aspects and representations of topics. Design thinking is particularly useful i...