Creative thought is effortless; so don't confuse it with analytical thinking. Creative thinking does not analyze right and wrong, or good and bad. In creative thinking, you let go of control and allow your thoughts to wander aimlessly from one idea to the next. Creative thinking can help you to locate information that your left-brain has misplaced. For example, have you ever struggled with a problem and analyzed it until your head hurt, only to find a solution pop in16DCto your mind while doing some mundane task? That source of inspiration was your right-brained creative thinker doing what it does best.
Creative thinking allows you to find new connections between things; connections that the analytical mind would never consider. Creative thinking takes what it already knows to be true and mixes it with concepts just discovered, usually discovering new connections, new solutions and new insights in the process. Creative thinking is what makes brainstorming possible. Reflective thinking is what caused Einstein to first envision his "general theory of relativity" while daydreaming about light. Einstein said that imagination is more important than knowledge, and I figure he should know.
Brainstorming is a process that helps people explore connections and release their creativity. Analytical thought stops the process of brainstorming. If you've ever experienced a good brainstorming session, you know that people usually have a number of bad ideas before inspiration strikes. When you analyze all your bad ideas to death, you never give your genius a chance to strike. The analyzer inside of us tends to reject the explorer's ideas before the explorer has had a chance to explore. In the end, we reject our only path to genius.
Let me show you an exercise that demonstrates what I mean:
1. Find a pen, a piece of paper, and a timer.
2. Get ready to set your timer for three minutes.
3. In a moment, I'm going to ask you to copy a link into your address bar and go to the link. Don't worry, you will not be added to any list, receive any pop up ads, or other advertisements. On that page, you will simply see an image. For three minutes, I want you to look at that image and make a list of everything that you think the image could represent. Keep adding to the list until the timer goes off.
4. Once you have completed the three minutes, hit the back button on your browser window to return to this article for your results. This exercise does work best if you complete it before reading the rest of the article.
5. Ready? Copy the following link into your address bar, click go, and begin.
www.navigatinglife.org/id85.html
Did you judge the image at first sight, and did your judgments contribute to the length of your list? Now that you have completed the exercise, count how many items you have on your list.
If you have five to eight items on your list, then you have the same average as most adults over 18 years of age. But teenagers usually average 10 to 15 items, while kindergartners average a list of 60 items or more.
Amazing, isn't it? The average adult struggles thirty-seconds to find just one new idea. While in that same thirty-seconds, a typical kindergartner effortlessly discovers ten.
We're all born with an incredible ability to imagine and brainstorm.
So where does that ability go?
Do you remember looking at the image during the exercise, and after your initial reaction, spending most of your time thinking mainly about everything it couldn't be? Do you remember spending most of your time rejecting your ideas?
Whenever I have my classes do this excise, my adult students typically stare at the image for the entire three minutes, their pencils hardly moving. They get an idea and their left-brain says, "No, not that." Then they get another idea, and again their left-brain says, "No, not that." Eventually, the right-brain stops offering ideas, and my students end up just staring at the image for the entire three minutes. They want a good idea to strike before they write anything down. But creativity doesn't work that way. If you focus all of your attention on "what the image isn't," you leave no room in your mind for inspiration to strike.
Try the same exercise. But this time, write down everything that pops into your mind, no matter how silly, or stupid you think it sounds. Keep your pen moving and don't let it stop. Pretty soon, the ideas that seem foolish will develop into ideas that make sense. Create a stream of consciousness. Play with sound and rhythm and rhyme. Cock your head to one side, or turn the image around in your mind so that you can see the image from a new angle. Allow your silliness to trigger new ideas. Don't let your left-brain interrupt your thoughts, offer judgments, or edit your creativity.
My guess is that your list will be much longer the second time, and much more fun. You might even find yourself giggling. Genius tends to hit us when we're having fun playing with our own amazing thoughts.
Cultivate your imagination. Make a point of asking questions, making up stories and playing with children. Try to keep the reflective, questing, playful part of your mind alive and happy. Without imagination, we are limited by what we have already experienced. Emerson once wrote, "We recognize in every act of genius, our own disregarded thoughts." So stop disregarding your thoughts. Stop disregarding your own genius...
From A River Worth Riding: Fourteen Rules for Navigating Life, by Lynn Marie Sager copyright 2005
You can find more about creativity, brainstorming, and redefining your life on Navigating Life's website. Simply go to http://www.navigatinglife.org, and visit Boarding for links to our full lessons on each.
Lynn Marie Sager has toured over two-dozen countries and worked on three continents. Author of A River Worth Riding: Fourteen Rules for Navigating Life, Lynn currently lives in California; where she fills her time with private coaching, public speaking, and teaching for the LACCD and Pi411erce College. She runs the Navigating Life website, where she offers free assistance to readers who wish to incorporate the rules of worthwhile living into their lives. To read more about how you can use these rules to improve your life, visit Lynn's website at http://www.navigatinglife.org
Superstition and Religion
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