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:star: Introduction to Creative Thinking :star: - Coggle Diagram
:star: Introduction to Creative Thinking :star:
WHAT IS CREATIVE THINKING
ATTITUDE
ability to accept change and newness
willingness to play with ideas and possibilities
flexibility of outlook
habit of enjoying the good
looking for ways to improve it
PROCESS
work hard and continually to improve ideas and solutions
making gradual alterations
refinements to their works
inventor would keep on tweaking it and fiddling with it, always trying to make it a little better
ABILITY
ability to imagine
invent something new
ability to generate new ideas by combining, changing, or reapplying existing ideas
CREATIVE METHODS
EVOLUTION
method of incremental improvement
New ideas stem from other ideas, new solutions from previous ones
slightly improved over the old ones
a little better there gradually makes it something a lot better--even entirely different from the original.
SYNTHESIS
two or more existing ideas are combined into a third, new idea.
Combining the ideas of a magazine and an audio tape gives the idea of a magazine you can listen to, one useful for blind people or freeway commuters.
REVOLUTION
Sometimes the best new idea is a completely different one, an marked change from the previous ones.
While an evolutionary improvement philosophy might cause a professor to ask, "How can I make my lectures better and better?"
REAPPLICATION
Look at something old in a new way.
Unfixate, remove prejudices, expectations and assumptions and discover how something can be reapplied
CHANGING DIRECTION
Many creative breakthroughs occur when attention is shifted from one angle of a problem to another.
This is sometimes called creative insight.
NEGATIVE ATTITUDES TO BLOCK CREATIVITY
I can't do it. Or There's nothing I can do.
Some people think, well maybe the problem can be solved by some expert, but not by me because I'm not (a) smart enough, (b) an engineer, or (c) a blank (whether educated, expert, etc.)
But I'm not creative.
Everyone is creative to some extent. Most people are capable of very high levels of creativity; just look at young children when they play and imagine.
The problem is that this creativity has been suppressed by education.
All you need to do is let it come back to the surface. You will soon discover that you are surprisingly creative.
It cant be done
This attitude is, in effect, surrendering before the battle.
By assuming that something cannot be done or a problem cannot be solved, a person gives the problem a power or strength it didn't have before.
And giving up before starting is, of course, self fulfilling
Its childish
In our effort to appear always mature and sophisticated, we often ridicule the creative, playful attitudes that marked our younger years.
But if you solve a problem that saves your marriage or gets you promoted or keeps your friend from suicide, do you care whether other people describe your route to the solution as "childish?"
Oh no, a problem!
The reaction to a problem is often a bigger problem than the problem itself
Many people avoid or deny problems until it's too late, largely because these people have never learned the appropriate emotional, psychological, and practical responses
POSITIVE ATTITUDE
curiosity
Creative people want to know things--all kinds of things-- just to know them. Knowledge does not require a reason.
challenge
Curious people like to identify and challenge the assumptions behind ideas, proposals, problems, beliefs, and statements.
Many assumptions, of course, turn out to be quite necessary and solid, but many others have been assumed unnecessarily, and in breaking out of those assumptions often comes a new idea, a new path, a new solution
constructive discontent
This is not a whining, griping kind of discontent, but the ability to see a need for improvement and to propose a method of making that improvement.
Constructive discontent is a positive, enthusiastic discontent, reflecting the thought, "Hey, I know a way to make that better."
belief
. By faith at first and by experience later on, the creative thinker believes that something can always be done to eliminate or help alleviate almost every problem.
Problems are solved by a commitment of time and energy, and where this commitment is present, few things are impossible.
suspend judgement
Many new ideas, because they are new and unfamiliar, seem strange, odd, bizarre, even repulsive.
Only later do they become "obviously" great. Other ideas, in their original incarnations, are indeed weird, but they lead to practical, beautiful, elegant things.
Thus, it is important for the creative thinker to be able to suspend judgment when new ideas are arriving, to have an optimistic attitude toward ideas in general, and to avoid condemning them with the typical kinds of negative responses like, "That will never work; that's no good; what an idiotic idea; that's impossible," and so forth
seeing the good in bad
Creative thinkers, when faced with poor solutions, don't cast them away. Instead, they ask, "What's good about it?" because there may be something useful even in the worst ideas. And however little that good may be, it might be turned to good effect or made greater.
MYTHS
Every problem has only one solution (or one right answer).
The best answer/solution/method has already been found
Creative answers are complex technologically
. Ideas either come or they don't. Nothing will help.
Mental Blocks to Creative Thinking and Problem Solving
Prejudice
The older we get, the more preconceived ideas we have about things.
These preconceptions often prevent us from seeing beyond what we already know or believe to be possible.
They inhibit us from accepting change and progress.
Functional fixation
Sometimes we begin to see an object only in terms of its name rather in terms of what it can do.
Learned helplessness
This is the feeling that you don't have the tools, knowledge, materials, ability, to do anything, so you might as well not try.
We are trained to rely on other people for almost everything. We think small and limit ourselves. But the world can be interacted with.
Psychological blocks.
Some solutions are not considered or are rejected simply because our reaction to them is "Yuck."
But icky solutions themselves may be useful or good if they solve a problem well or save your life.
Eating lizards and grasshoppers doesn't sound great, but if it keeps you alive in the wilderness, it's a good solution
Miscellaneous Good Attitudes
Perseverance
Most people fail because they spend only nine minutes on a problem that requires ten minutes to solve.
Creativity and problem solving are hard work and require fierce application of time and energy
A flexible imagination.
Creative people are comfortable with imagination and with thinking so-called weird, wild, or unthinkable thoughts, just for the sake of stimulation
A belief that mistakes are welcome
Modern society has for some reason conceived the idea that the only unforgivable thing is to fail or make a mistake.
Actually failure is an opportunity; mistakes show that something is being done.
So creative people have come to realize and accept emotionally that making mistakes is no negative biggie
Characteristics of the Creative Person
• curious
• seeks problems
• enjoys challenge
• optimistic
• able to suspend judgment
• comfortable with imagination
• sees problems as opportunities
• sees problems as interesting
• problems are emotionally acceptable
• challenges assumptions
• doesn't give up easily: perseveres, works hard