Creative Problem Solving & Critical Thinking

CREATIVE PROBLEM SOLVING & CRITICAL THINKING

What Is Problem Solving?

Find a solution to any problem you face.

We all spend a lot of our time solving problems, both at work and in our personal lives.

Some problems are small, and we can quickly sort them out ourselves. But others are complex challenges that take collaboration, creativity, and a considerable amount of effort to solve.

At work, the types of problems we face depend largely on the organizations we're in and the jobs we do. A manager in a cleaning company, for example, might spend their day untangling staffing issues, resolving client complaints, and sorting out problems with equipment and supplies. An aircraft designer, on the other hand, might be grappling with a problem about aerodynamics, or trying to work out why a new safety feature isn't working. Meanwhile, a politician might be exploring solutions to racial injustice or climate change.

But whatever issues we face, there are some common ways to tackle them effectively. And we can all boost our confidence and ability to succeed by building a strong set of problem-solving skills.

How Well Do You Solve Problems?

Start by taking an honest look at your existing skills. What's your current approach to solving problems, and how well is it working? Our quiz, How Good Is Your Problem Solving?  lets you analyze your abilities, and signposts ways to address any areas of weakness.

Define Every Problem

The first step in solving a problem understands what that problem actually is. You need to be sure that you're dealing with the real problem – not its symptoms. For example, if performance in your department is substandard, you might think that the problem lies with the individuals submitting work. However, if you look a bit deeper, the real issue might be a general lack of training, or an unreasonable workload across the team.

Tools like 5 Whys , Appreciation  and Root Cause Analysis  get you asking the right questions, and help you to work through the layers of a problem to uncover what's really going on.

However, defining a problem doesn't mean deciding how to solve it straightaway. It's important to look at the issue from a variety of perspectives. If you commit yourself too early, you can end up with a short-sighted solution. The CATWOE  checklist provides a powerful reminder to look at many elements that may contribute to the problem, keeping you open to a variety of possible solutions.

Understanding Complexity

As you define your problem, you'll often discover just how complicated it is. There are likely several interrelated issues involved. That's why it's important to have ways to visualize, simplify and make sense of this tangled mess!

Affinity Diagrams are great for organizing many different pieces of information into common themes, and for understanding the relationships between them.

Another popular tool is the Cause-and-Effect Diagram . To generate viable solutions, you need a solid understanding of what's causing the problem.

When your problem occurs within a business process, creating a Flow Chart , Swim Lane Diagram  or a Systems Diagram  will help you to see how various activities and inputs fit together. This may well highlight a missing element or bottleneck that's causing your problem.

Quite often, what seems to be a single problem turns out to be a whole series of problems. The Drill Down technique prompts you to split your problem into smaller, more manageable parts.

General Problem-Solving Tools

When you understand the problem in front of you, you’re ready to start solving it. With your definition to guide you, you can generate several possible solutions, choose the best one, then put it into action. That's the four-step approach at the heart of good problem solving.

There are various problem-solving styles to use. For example:

Constructive Controversy  is a way of widening perspectives and energizing discussions.

Inductive Reasoning  makes the most of people’s experiences and know-how, and can speed up solution finding.

Means-End Analysis  can bring extra clarity to your thinking, and kick-start the process of implementing solutions.

Specific Problem-Solving Systems

Some particularly complicated or important problems call for a more comprehensive process. Again, Mind Tools has a range of approaches to try, including:

Simplex , which involves an eight-stage process: problem finding, fact finding, defining the problem, idea finding, selecting and evaluating, planning, selling the idea, and acting. These steps build upon the basic, four-step process described above, and they create a cycle of problem finding and solving that will continually improve your organization.

Appreciative Inquiry , which is a uniquely positive way of solving problems by examining what's working well in the areas surrounding them.

Soft Systems Methodology , which takes you through four stages to uncover more details about what's creating your problem, and then define actions that will improve the situation.

Further Problem-Solving Strategies

Good problem solving requires a number of other skills – all of which are covered by Mind Tools.

For example, we have a large section of resources to improve your Creativity, so that you come up with a range of possible solutions.

By strengthening your Decision Making, you'll be better at evaluating the options, selecting the best ones, then choosing how to implement them.

And our Project Management collection has valuable advice for strengthening the whole problem-solving process. The resources there will help you to make effective changes – and then keep them working long term.

What Is Creative Problem Solving?

What Is Creative Thinking?

What Is Creative Thinking and Why Is It Important?

Have you ever wondered why some can come up with amazing ideas while others can’t? The ability to connect the dots and see the larger picture all rest in a certain skill – creative thinking.

Creative thinking is our ability to look at ideas presented or a scenario, and find new alternatives that solve the problem. Best of all this skill isn’t bound to the creative people like designers, musicians, or other artists. A lot of people can benefit from thinking this way from time to time. They can also receive a number of benefits on top of a wide variety of ideas that can spark change.

What Is Creative Thinking?

Defined by the Business Dictionary, creative thinking is:

A way of looking at problems or situations from a fresh perspective that suggests unorthodox solutions (which may look unsettling at first). Creative thinking can be stimulated both by an unstructured process such as brainstorming, and by a structured process such as lateral thinking.

Creativity is, therefore, our ability to form something new out of what’s presented. It’s our ability to think differently and provide new angles and perspectives to a solution.

This can translate to a new solution that wasn’t there or even the realization that a problem doesn’t need a solution at the moment or at all.

The Importance of Creative Thinking

True that many people may not care so much about new solutions or angles but that’s the point. Our brains have a natural tendency to fall into certain ‘shortcuts’.

Have you ever been in a situation where you hear or learn one piece of information and you use it all the time?

I bet you have, since we don’t need to relearn how to use a knife or a fork.

That way of thinking does have its perks in those situations but has some drawbacks in other situations. This is especially true with problem-solving.

Creative thinking and creative thinkers are needed in those situations because it pushes out of that linear way of thinking. It encourages us to look at other perspectives and even open up to the idea of new solutions.

Creative thinking is also important for other reasons:

Thinking creatively provides immense freedom.

When we create, we have the opportunity to engage with the world without judging ourselves. It’s similar to what we felt when we were a child. Back then we didn’t care what people thought of us.

Creative thinking provides self-awareness.

We start to think with authenticity as we use our own thoughts, feelings and beliefs. This creates biases in our ideas, but we can learn to set those aside and deeply learn about ourselves.

We become more confident in our ideas.

Maybe right now, you don’t present ideas or your ideas get shut down. By tapping into creative thinking, we can build our confidence in our ideas and start to contribute to the group and our work at large.

What Are the Creative Thinking Skills?

Creative thinking isn’t barred to those who learn in creative fashions. Anyone can pick up creative thinking skills and use them to enrich their lives and those around them.

Because anyone can learn this, there is no one “right” method or a set of skills you absolutely need. Some of us may need to strengthen one area while others may need to do more. Regardless, here are some skills that can complement creative thinking.

1. Perception & Empathy

Feeling surprised that this is one of the creative thinking skills? Being perceptive and empathetic works hand in hand with creative thinking. Being able to read the mood of a meeting or a discussion you’re having with people can help immensely.

This is key because there are times and places to share ideas. Specifically, you may find the best opportunities to share ideas when:

You’re facing a major problem or issue and can’t seem to find a way to proceed and solve it.

During times of change, when the future is more obscure than usual and you’re thinking of possibilities.

When there is a clear divide between what people think needs to happen. It’s especially needed when no compromises can happen without considerable effort.

When something new is needed and hasn’t been tried before.

Empathy also helps with how an idea is presented. Maybe in your workgroup, people aren’t always receptive to your ideas. However, there is that one person who always has a plan and people support.

Empathy is letting that person take “ownership” of that idea and be the voice behind the idea. In these sorts of scenarios, you build up more than empathy. It also builds the belief that your idea will prevail in the hands of someone else.

2. Analytical

Analytical skills help us in understanding many other situations outside of the social environment. Being able to read text or data and have a deeper understanding of what they mean will serve you in a variety of ways.

I find that with creative thinking, the first step is being able to intake information and digest it in various ways. Being able to analyze information is often the first step in the creative thinking process.

3. Open-Mindedness

Once you’ve taken in the information, it’s important that you have an open mind. This means you need to set aside your biases or assumptions and encourage yourself to look at a problem in a new way.

Biases and assumptions are some of the mental barriers you’ll face. But looking at the other barriers, they often stem from that sort of thinking. A strict and “this is how it should be” way of thinking. Other examples of limitations are that you’re thinking of a problem too logically or that creative thinking is somehow breaking the rules.

These are limiting because we know that to have an open mind is to succeed. Every successful entrepreneur in the world today had to break rules at some point in their lives. Consider Richard Branson or Elon Musk whose work revolutionized or created an entirely new industry. All because they didn’t back down to how things were. You can do the same thing within your own group in some fashion.

4. Organized

The last thing people associate creative thinkers is that they’re organized. While we think of great minds have messy rooms or desks, that’s not the case at all.

Being organized plays a crucial role in creative thinking in that it allows you to better organize our ideas. Not only that, but it also helps to present it as well. When we present ideas, it’s similar to a speech. There ought to be a structure, a vision, and have it easy to follow and understand.

Furthermore, if your idea is given the green light, you’ll need to form an action plan, set goals, and have specific deadlines. Being organized will keep you on your toes and prepared for almost anything.

5. Communication

Communication plays a vital role in all this as well. You can’t sell a group or an individual on an idea if you can’t communicate effectively. This applies to both written and verbal communication skills.

This goes back to empathy a bit in that you need to understand the situation you’re in. This also means you need to be a good listener and being able to ask the right questions.

6. Dissect Ideas

The last skill I’ll offer is a challenging one but can pay off in so many ways. Sometimes creative thinking means taking two ideas and merging them.

This helps because in most situations ideas in their base form might not be able to satisfy the original goal or problem. That or maybe the idea is outright terrible but, there are some good pieces of information in it.

The ability to look at ideas and be able to break them down and dissect them and merge with other ideas is a great skill to have. This could easily help solve disputes and help to find a middle ground.

Some Examples of Creative Thinking

The list of creative thinking examples is endless. In most situations, these examples will boost your creative thinking as well so I encourage you to try them out yourself:

Designing anything from a logo, to a simple webpage layout, to a poster and more

Creating a lesson plan for a group training course

Writing in a journal, a blog, or any social platforms

Creating a test or quiz from scratch just for fun

Brainstorming project ideas at work, or decor/renovation ideas at home

Finding procedures to improve the quality of a product or service

Suggesting solutions to improve a product or service

Conclusion

The number of examples of creative thinking is endless but they are all challenging. This is a good thing as the world continues to change and grow. This pushes us to learn new skills, to think differently, and to start asking the more important questions. “Why?” and “Why not?”

These are skills and abilities that can change the world and that anyone can adopt. So long as you have the patience to learn and develop yourself, you too can be a creative thinker!

Your neighbors downstairs are playing loud music. Again. How do they not get tired of partying? And why do they choose songs with such a heavy downbeat that the glass in your cupboard is vibrating every two seconds? What can you do to get some peace that you deserve? What should you?

Human mind tends to go in circles whenever faced with a problem without a clear solution. It becomes easy to forget the big picture and get lost in anger and self-pity, wasting our precious time, energy and enthusiasm.

Would it not be nice if we always remembered to put things in perspective?

Would it not be more efficient to face all kinds of problems, from tiny annoyances to life-changing emergencies, with a calm demeanor, sharp focus and fearless determination to promptly take the most efficient action possible?

Alas, humans are not like that. All too often we let anxiety or greed get the best of us and make a rushed or shortsighted decision that we quickly come to regret. Other times, we spend weeks or months at an impasse, rehashing the exact same arguments, unable to accept the compromise required to move forward with any of the available options.

Buddhists talk about getting lost in the “small self.” In this state of mind, we literally forget the big picture and focus on the small one. We start taking our daily problems too personally and, paradoxically, becomes less capable of solving them in an efficient manner. And this is the opposite of big picture thinking.

Creative Problem Solving at Work

While some people think that CPS is about brainstorming, it’s more than that. What is Creative Problem Solving anyway?

Creative Problem Solving is an approach that makes use of techniques that stimulate new ideas to come up with innovative and unconventional solutions to problems. It’s the recognition that predictive and obvious solution approaches won’t be enough if you want to make a significant impact on your organization and customers. CPS is not just coming up with creative ideas, it’s a methodical process that requires conscious effort and time.

CPS can be used in a variety of situations that require new ideas or out-of-the-box approaches. But in case you’re wondering when you need to channel your inner creative-problem-solver, here are some scenarios where you can do so.

We’ve also added sample creative challenges for each scenario.

Growth challenges

How to get 10,000 new members for our subscription service?

How to increase our revenue by 20% next quarter?

Coming up with a new product or service

How can we give more value to our existing customers?

How can we solve this customer pain point?

Optimization of resources and performance

How can we speed up our response time to customer inquiries?

How can we improve our customer satisfaction ratings?

Cost-efficiency

How can we finish project X in less than 2 months?

How can we lower our operational and inventory costs?

Technology

How can we use “artificial intelligence” to provide better service to our customers?

How can we use “big data” to provide useful insights for our product and sales team?

Organizational Improvements and Employee Engagement

How can we retain our most talented employees?

How can we create a culture of innovation?

Business strategy

How can we become the number 1 brand in our industry?

How can we prepare our employees for the future of work?

Essentially, any problem that requires new ideas is a prime candidate for creative problem-solving.

Creative Problem Solving Process

If you want to use CPS for your next project, here are the 7 steps to do it:

Clarify and identify the problem

You must know and fully understand what your goal is or the problem that you’re trying to solve. To ensure you’re addressing the root cause of the problem, you can use the 5 Whys technique. You’ll also need to set the criteria to evaluate the solutions that will be formulated in the next steps.

Research the problem

Gather as much information as you can about the problem you’re solving. Apart from searching online for reference materials, you can also interview your target customers or stakeholders, or consult a subject matter expert.

Formulate creative challenges

A creative challenge is a question that is framed to encourage ideation. These are typical “how” questions, just like the examples presented in our previous section. Each challenge must focus on a single issue to encourage faster ideation. You can create one or more creative challenges for your project.

Generate ideas

Take one creative challenge at a time and generate ideas on how you might solve it. You can do this on your own or with a group. There is no specific time frame for this stage unless you are working on a time-sensitive project. And there isn’t a single approach to idea generation. Whatever your approach is, make sure you take time to document them.

Combine and evaluate the ideas

Review your ideas and evaluate which ones would best fit the criteria you’ve set in step 1. Focus on identifying what your most viable options are. Check if there’s an opportunity to combine some solutions to make them better.

Draw up an action plan

Once you’ve identified your best solutions, plan your course of action. Break down your action plan into manageable steps so that it’s easier to implement. You can draw up your action plan on a kanban board to keep you on track.

Implement your plan

The only way you’ll know if your idea is good is if you implement it. Adjust your action plan as you gather feedback and confirm or trump your assumptions.

An Innovative Approach to Problem Solving

Creative problem solving is without a doubt a key competency that employees must have to thrive in their careers. For organization leaders, think of how you can cultivate a culture of innovation and creativity in your company. To prepare for the challenges of the future, creativity and innovation should be at the forefront of your company’s endeavors.

How to Think Critically: 5 Powerful Techniques

Critical thinking is the art of filtering through information to reach an unbiased, logical decision that guides better thought and action. It can be learned through powerful techniques listed in this article.

Before you read further, it is important for you to know that critical thinking is a state of mind, not a tool or strategy.

If you are bogged down in the trivial day to day matters of your professional and personal life, learning how to think critically can help you rise above these issues and focus your energies where they are needed – to solve problems and accomplish objectives.

It stands to reason that the better the learning techniques, the better critical thinking and reasoning will be. My experience in helping people grow means I know exactly what is needed to learn critical thinking (hint: it’s not just pondering over the problem).

5 powerful techniques that form the base of critical thinking:

1.               Analytical thinking

2.               Communication

3.               Creativity

4.               Open-mindedness

5.               Problem-solving

Once you learn the techniques listed and start employing them in your daily life, you’ll quickly start to notice a change in the way you approach problems and consequently, how you resolve them too.

1. Analytical Thinking

Analytical thinking is the gathering and breaking down of information into small bites that help make sense of it.

2. Communication

Communication is a key technique for critical thinking as it gives you access to the thoughts of people around you.

Data can be communicated through audio and visual means and in many cases, through careful observation of body language:

3. Creativity

Critical thinking is an art, and like any art form, its lifeblood is creativity. To really learn critical thinking, you need to include elements of creativity in the process!

4. Open-Mindedness

It’s easy to say you’re open minded but is your mind really open?

Open-mindedness is a powerful technique for critical thinking. New possibilities can be uncovered, helping you resolve personal and professional matters in a manner that doesn’t frustrate you or alienate the other party.

5. Problem-Solving

Critical thinking is heavily dependent on problem-solving. An effective critical thinker will be a problem solver with the foresight to anticipate roadblocks and negative outcomes, and the experience and presence of mind to resolve them quickly and move on.

One of the most effective problem-solving methodologies is the 5 Whys Analysis. Invented by Sakichi Toyoda, the founder of Toyota Motors in the 1950s, it has been used successfully by the automobile giant to get to the root cause of problems.

For example, consider the commonly given scenario where a vehicle does not start.

1.               Vehicle will not start. Why?

2.               Battery is dead. Why?

3.               The alternator is not functioning. Why?

4.               The alternator belt has broken. Why?

5.               It was old and worn out. Why?

6.               The car is not maintained according to manufacturer’s recommendation.

HOW TO USE CREATIVE PROBLEM SOLVING TECHNIQUES

Creative problem solving (CPS) is a method for creatively approaching a challenge to develop ideas and potential solutions to problems

Below are the four steps to creative problem solving:

1. Clarify

The clarify step is where you focus on defining the vision and determining the challenge or problem. Create a set of questions you are seeking to answer. Gather as much data as you can to understand the issue.

2. Ideate

This is the divergent thinking exercise where you explore your creativity. You want to generate as many possible alternatives and ideas as you can. At this stage you are brainstorming ideas without evaluation. In addition to a simple whiteboard or flip chart and markers, there are various tools you can use for ideation.

3. Develop

In the develop stage you switch back to convergent thinking. You evaluate all of the ideas you generated in the Ideate stage. Evaluate each idea to see if they will meet your mission and goals. Do they answer the questions you created in the clarify stage? How can you take the top ideas and strengthen them? Your end goal of this stage is to select and develop the winning idea.

4. Implement

In the implement stage you develop a plan to implement the winning idea from the develop stage. What will it take to implement the idea and what resources will be needed? After you have developed the plan and path forward, communicate the plan and the resources required.

Creative Problem Solving: What Is It?

Creative Problem Solving, or CPS,  refers to the use of imagination and innovation to find solutions to problems when formulaic or conventional processes have failed.

Despite its rather dry definition - creative problem-solving in its application can be a lot of fun for learners and teachers alike.

Why Are Creative Problem-Solving Skills Important?

By definition, creative problem-solving challenges students to think beyond the conventional and to avoid well-trodden, sterile paths of thinking.

Not only does this motivate student learning, encourage engagement, and inspire deeper learning, but the practical applications of this higher-level thinking skill are virtually inexhaustible.

When students have developed their creative problem-solving abilities effectively, they will have added a powerful tool to attack problems that they will encounter, whether in school, work, or in their personal lives.

The Creative Problem-Solving Process

CPS helps students arrive at innovative and novel solutions to the problems that arise in life. Having a process to follow helps to keep students focused and to reach a point where action can be taken to implement creative ideas.

Originally developed by Alex Osborn and Sid Parnes, the CPS process has gone through a number of revisions over the last 50 or so years and, as a result, there are a number of variations of this model in existence.

1. Clarify:

Before beginning to seek creative solutions to a problem, it is important to clarify the exact nature of that problem. To do this, students should do the following three things:

i. Identify the Problem

The first step in bringing creativity to problem-solving is to identify the problem, challenge, opportunity, or goal and clearly define it.

ii. Gather Data

Gather data and research information and background to ensure a clear understanding.

iii. Formulate Questions

Enhance awareness of the nature of the problem by creating questions that invite solutions.

2. Ideate

Explore new ideas to answer the questions raised. It’s time to get creative here. The more ideas generated, the greater the chance of producing a novel and useful idea. At this stage in particular, students should be engaged in divergent thinking as described above.

3. Develop

The focus here shifts from ideas to solutions. Once multiple ideas have been generated, convergent thinking can be used to narrow these down to the most suitable solution. The best idea should be closely analyzed in all its aspects and further ideas generated to make subsequent improvements. This is the stage to refine the initial idea and make it into a really workable solution.

4. Implement

Create a plan to implement the chosen solution. Students need to identify the required resources for the successful implementation of the solution. They need to plan for the actions that need to be taken, when they need to be taken, and who needs to take them.

Mental Blocks to Creative Thinking?

What is a mental block?

A mental block prevents you from accessing your natural creative abilities. You’ll feel like you’ll never accomplish the task at hand. Instead of feeling inspired and energized about your article ideas, you feel drained.

Catching yourself second-guessing your decisions is one quick way to realize that you’re having a mental block. If you weren’t blocked creatively, you’d feel confident about your choices and writing abilities. 

Frustrating mental blocks often happen when you’re trying to solve a tough problem, start a business, get attention for that business, come up with killer content ideas, or write an interesting article. But in those situations, creative thinking is crucial.

The process for achieving content success boils down to changing your perspective and seeing things differently than you currently do.

People like to call this “thinking outside of the box,” but that’s the wrong way to look at it.

Just like Neo needed to understand that “there is no spoon” in the film The Matrix, you need to realize “there is no box” to step outside of.

You create your own imaginary boxes simply by living life and accepting certain things as “real” when they are just as illusory as the beliefs of a paranoid delusional.

The difference is, enough people agree that certain man-made concepts are “real,” so you’re viewed as “normal.”

This is good for society overall, but it’s that sort of unquestioning consensus that inhibits your natural creative abilities — no matter how you define creativity.

So, rather than looking for ways to inspire creativity, you should just realize the truth.

You’re already capable of creative thinking at all times, but you have to strip away the imaginary mental blocks (or boxes) you’ve picked up along the way to wherever you are today.

What is a mental block?

A mental block prevents you from accessing your natural creative abilities. You’ll feel like you’ll never accomplish the task at hand. Instead of feeling inspired and energized about your article ideas, you feel drained.

Catching yourself second-guessing your decisions is one quick way to realize that you’re having a mental block. If you weren’t blocked creatively, you’d feel confident about your choices and writing abilities. You’d write articles fast.

Mental blocks can prevent you from finishing a project — or even prevent you from starting in the first place.

What causes mental blocks?

A variety of circumstances can cause mental blocks, but a mental block typically occurs when you care a lot about the outcome of a situation.

Think of it this way: When you don’t care about something, there’s no reason for concern, right? If you don’t have a preference about how a finished project will look, it’s a lot easier to flow from task to task and smoothly complete each step.

However, when you do care a lot about something, such as the quality of your writing, it’s a lot easier to freeze up. When the stakes are high, you’re more likely to get blocked.

How to get over a mental block

I like to keep this list of 10 common ways we suppress our natural creative abilities nearby when I get stuck. It helps me realize that the barriers to a good idea are truly all in my head.

1. Trying to find the “right” answer

One of the worst aspects of formal education is the focus on the correct answer to a particular question or problem.

While this approach helps us function in society, it hurts creative thinking because real-life issues are ambiguous. There’s often more than one “correct” answer, and the second one you come up with might be better than the first.

Many of the following mental blocks can be turned around to reveal ways to find more than one answer to any given problem. For example, the process of publishing a book has evolved over the years. There’s no one “right” way to do that anymore.

Try reframing the issue in several different ways in order to prompt different answers and embrace answering inherently ambiguous questions in several different ways.

2. Logical thinking

Not only is real life ambiguous, it’s often illogical to the point of madness.

While critical thinking skills based on logic are one of our main strengths in evaluating the feasibility of a creative idea, it’s often the enemy of truly innovative thoughts in the first place.

One of the best ways to escape the constraints of your own logical mind is to think metaphorically.

One of the reasons why metaphors work so well is that we accept them as true without thinking about it. When you realize that “truth” is often symbolic, you’ll often find that you are actually free to come up with alternatives.

3. Following rules

One way to view creative thinking is to look at it as a destructive force.

You’re tearing away the often arbitrary rules that others have set for you, and asking either “why” or “why not” whenever confronted with the way “everyone” does things.

This is easier said than done, since people will often defend the rules they follow even in the face of evidence that the rule doesn’t work.

People love to celebrate rebels like Richard Branson, but few seem brave enough to emulate him. Quit worshipping rule breakers and start breaking some rules.

4. Being practical

Like logic, practicality is hugely important when it comes working as a professional writer, but it often stifles innovative ideas before they can properly blossom.

Don’t allow the editor into the same room with your inner artist.

Try not to evaluate the actual feasibility of an approach until you’ve allowed it to exist on its own for a bit.

Spend time asking “what if” as often as possible, and simply allow your imagination to go where it wants. You might just find yourself discovering a crazy idea that’s so insanely practical that no one’s thought of it before.

5. Play is not work

Allowing your mind to be at play is perhaps the most effective way to stimulate creative thinking, and yet many people disassociate play from work.

These days, the people who can come up with great ideas and solutions are the most economically rewarded, while worker bees are often employed for the benefit of the creative thinkers.

You’ve heard the expression “work hard and play hard.” All you have to realize is that they’re the same thing as a creative thinker.

6. That’s not my job

In an era of hyper-specialization, it’s those who happily explore completely unrelated areas of life and knowledge who best see that everything is related.

This goes back to what ad man Carl Ally said about creative persons — they want to be know-it-alls.

(You can read more about that in the article How to Write Remarkably Creative Content.)

Sure, you’ve got to know the specialized stuff in your field, but if you view yourself as an explorer rather than a highly specialized cog in the machine, you’ll run circles around the technical master in the success department.

7. Being a “serious” person

Most of what keeps us civilized boils down to conformity, consistency, shared values, and yes, thinking about things the same way everyone else does.

There’s nothing wrong with that necessarily. But if you can mentally accept that it’s actually nothing more than groupthink that helps a society function, you can then give yourself permission to turn everything that’s accepted upside down and shake out the illusions.

Leaders from Egyptian pharaohs to Chinese emperors and European royalty have consulted with fools, or court jesters, when faced with tough problems.

The persona of the fool allowed the truth to be told, without the usual ramifications that might come with speaking blasphemy, being naive, or challenging ingrained social conventions.

Give yourself permission to remove this mental block, be a fool, and see things for what they really are.

8. Avoiding ambiguity

We rationally realize that most every situation is ambiguous to some degree.

And although dividing complex situations into black and white boxes can lead to disaster, we still do it.

It’s an innate characteristic of human psychology to desire certainty, but it’s the creative thinker who rejects the false comfort of clarity when it’s not really appropriate.

Ambiguity is your friend if you’re looking to innovate.

The fact that most people are uncomfortable exploring uncertainty gives you an advantage, as long as you can embrace ambiguity rather than run from it.

9. Being wrong is bad

We hate being wrong, and yet mistakes often teach us the most.

Thomas Edison was wrong over 1,000 times before getting the light bulb right. Edison’s greatest strength was that he was not afraid to be wrong.

The best thing we do is learn from our mistakes, but we have to free ourselves to make mistakes in the first place.

Just try out your ideas for content or creator coins and see what happens, take what you learn, and try something else.

Ask yourself, what’s the worst that can happen if I’m wrong?

You’ll often find the benefits of being wrong greatly outweigh the ramifications.

10. I’m not creative

Denying your own creativity is like denying you’re a human being.

We’re all limitlessly creative, but only to the extent that we realize that we create our own limits with the way we think. If you tell yourself you’re not creative, it becomes true. Stop that mental block.

In that sense, awakening your own creativity is similar to the path reported by those who seek spiritual enlightenment.

You’re already enlightened, just like you’re already creative, but you have to strip away all of your delusions before you can see it.

Acknowledge that you’re inherently creative, and then start tearing down the other barriers you’ve allowed to be created in your mind.

5 Barriers to Critical Thinking

What holds us back from thinking critically in day-to-day situations?

Quite often, discussions of Critical Thinking (CT) revolve around tips for what you or your students should be doing to enhance CT ability. However, it seems that there’s substantially less discussion of what you shouldn’t be doing—that is, barriers to CT.

1. Trusting Your Gut

Trust your gut is a piece of advice often thrown around in the context of being in doubt. The concept of using intuitive judgment is actually the last thing you want to be doing if critical thinking is your goal.

2. Lack of Knowledge

CT skills are key components of what CT is, and in order to conduct it, one must know how to use these skills. Not knowing the skills of CT—analysis, evaluation, and inference (i.e., what they are or how to use them)—is, of course, a major barrier to its application. However, consideration of a lack of knowledge does not end with the knowledge of CT skills.

3. Lack of Willingness

In addition to skills, disposition towards thinking is also key to CT. Disposition towards thinking refers to the extent to which an individual is willing or inclined to perform a given thinking skill, and is essential for understanding how we think and how we can make our thinking better, in both academic settings and everyday circumstances

4. Misunderstanding of Truth

Truth-seeking is one such disposition towards thinking, which refers to a desire for knowledge; to seek and offer both reasons and objections in an effort to inform and to be well-informed; a willingness to challenge popular beliefs and social norms by asking questions (of oneself and others); to be honest and objective about pursuing the truth, even if the findings do not support one’s self-interest or pre-conceived beliefs or opinions; and to change one’s mind about an idea as a result of the desire for truth

Closed-mindedness

The willingness to play Devil’s Advocate implies a sensibility consistent with open-mindedness

At the opposite end of the spectrum, closed-mindedness is a significant barrier to CT. By this stage, you have probably identified the inherent nature of bias in our thinking. The first step of CT is always going to be to evaluate this bias. However, one’s bias may be so strong that it leads them to become closed-minded and renders them unwilling to consider any other perspectives