What Is Creative Thinking?
Creative thinking is a way of innovating new ideas, changing the perspective and creating novel solutions for problems. Creative thinkers brainstorm not only a large number of ideas but also a variety and range of them.
People often associate creativity with the arts, music or entertainment industry. However, creativity is also useful in other industries and daily routines.
Nowadays, many employers hire candidates who can create innovative strategies and original solutions to solve problems in their respective industries. You can develop creativity as a skill to solve challenges in your job or achieve your short- and long-term goals in daily life.
How To Develop Creative Thinking
Anyone can be creative and develop creative thinking with intrinsic motivation and practice, like most skills. You can take challenges, think from all perspectives, consider the views of your colleagues and collect data from unique sources to resolve issues.
As an example, here are the steps of Graham Wallace’s 4-stage model to develop creative thinking:
- Preparation: Focus on the problem and gather as much information as you can. The more knowledge about the problem you have, the easier it will be to think about different aspects of the issue.
- Incubation: In this stage, you have to stop thinking about the task and engage in other activities instead. This stage may appear counterproductive or a waste of time. However, it is essential to take a break because your subconscious mind works on the problem while you let your conscious mind relax.
- Illumination: Once you allow your mind to recover, you will find that your unconscious mind can suddenly present you with the best idea. This process can take a few hours to a few days. The important thing is to have patience. This experience is like the one where you have an inspiring dream and remember it as soon as you wake up in the morning.
- Verification: After you have an idea, you can try it and see if it works. If the solution is not suitable, you can go back to step 1 and repeat the process till you find the best one and verify its practicability, effectiveness and appropriateness.
