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Creativity Tip 16 – Breaking out of stuck thinking patterns
What stops us from thinking creative naturally? Basically our minds are a ‘pattern
recognition system’. Our minds are very efficient at pattern recognition processing
and we couldn't function effectively otherwise. Essentially we are creatures of habit
and we don't accept new ideas and concepts that don't fit our pre-established thinking
or ‘mind patterns’.
To come up with new ideas, we need to break these mind patterns. This can be done accidentally (when you just sit around and wait for ideas to pop in your head, which can be unpredictable and slow). A much better way, however, is to use deliberate tools that are faster and much more effective.
Here are a few techniques to help get you out of stuck thinking patterns:
1. Jolt your thinking. A great way to enhance your creativity is to do what Chuck Green refers to as “jolt” thinking. It’s a technique that allows you to draw creative ideas from everything else around you by applying restrictions to your thinking. Here’s how you do it. When you need an idea simply close your eyes, turn around or change your perspective, open your eyes and then the first thing you see when you open your eyes is going to be your topic; try to come up with a creative idea that incorporates the item - or the purpose of the item. Jolted thinking is based on the simple fact that too much freedom often hinders creativity.
2. Be random. Creativity is best fuelled when it is controlled by random inhibitions – so forcing your thoughts into new pathways. The way you can place random inhibitions on your thinking is by using a random idea seed. One way to do this is to flip through a dictionary to find random words (nouns seem to work best). Another approach, which is my favourite, is to pick any word you can think of and type it into Google search. When the results are displayed in Google, the default is the ‘web’ format. If you look at the top left hand part of the page you will see the tab labelled ‘web’ highlighted. Just to the right of it is the ‘images’ tab. Click on that and the search results will now show images only. Pick any of the images and use the picture as the random seed input instead of a word or noun as described above. I find that the ambiguity of a picture can generate even more creative ideas than just a random word input.
3. Tumbleweed connection. Let complex processes come to your aid. Just as the tumbleweed blows in the wind to find a new place to thrive and grow, depending on the weather, you can apply serendipity and synchronicity in your search (using Google or otherwise) to find a place that’s fertile for new ideas. By engaging your awareness with this in mind you can look for meaningful connections from unexpected directions. Serendipity is the ability to make accidental but fortuitous discoveries, especially while looking for something entirely unrelated. Synchronicity is the experience of two or more events that are apparently causally unrelated occurring together in a meaningful manner. Since meaning is a complex mental construction, subject to conscious and subconscious influence, not every grouping of ideas by meaning needs to have an explanation in terms of a simple relation. So randomly looking for something meaningful, like a tumbleweed in the wind – engages your powerful subconscious processes, and can lead to fruitful connections.
Creativity coaching can help with your thinking, so you can find more connections to successful ways of achieving your goals and dealing with your challenges.
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