Creative Thinking--How To Bring Out The Genius In You

Richard, one of my therapy clients, just laughed when I told him his business idea sounded great.

He had such little faith in himself, he believed that nothing he could come up with would amount to anything. Unfortunately, I see a lot of people who suffer from self esteem issues similar to Richard's. But there's more.

It's been said that all of us are born geniuses. The problem is, most of us don't know it. We believe what the world outside of us dictates to us. It reminds me of a Buddhist monk I once met who told me that the difference between an enlightened being and an unenlightened being is that the enlightened being knows he's enlightened. So, what is this creativity thing, anyway?

Creativity can be defined as improvement. No, you don't have to be an artist or a musician to be creative. In fact, it's been estimated that the average person comes up with three or four ideas every day that, if followed through, would lead to infinite wealth. Now, this creates a whole nother issue, doesn't it?

You see, most of us don't suffer from a lack of ideas. In fact, if you were to brainstorm money-making ideas right now, you could probably come up with at least five or six that, if you followed up with them, would make you a fortune. The real issue, then, is a lack of action. And that's not all . . .

So why don't we follow through on our ideas? Well, if we go back to my client Richard's issue, most of us don't believe that an idea that we thought up would be any good. As a result, all those awesome ideas that pop into your head are tossed aside as foolish. Even though they may hold the keys to realizing our dreams.

There are essentially four parts of the creative process. They are preparation, gestation, realization, and application.

Of the four, preparation is the most important. This is where you ask the right questions, gather facts, figures, and raw data. Typically, it's also the most time consuming.

Gestation is letting the idea sit for a while. Allowing it to cook or fester inside of you, until it comes bursting out. Then comes the realization process.

Realization is just when the idea becomes more concrete. With realization, you can see how to put the idea into practical use. It's no longer just in your head, now you've got it down on paper, and know exactly what to do.

If realization is knowing what to do, then the application process is the act of doing it. No longer is the idea in your head or on paper, it's actually being realized in it's physical form. It's solid now for all the world to see.

When it comes to creative thinking, quantity is more important than quality. This goes almost against every other concept we're familiar with. With creative thinking, however, if you have enough ideas, it stands to reason that at least one will prove to be a winner.

We are all super creative. Not all of us, however, trust ourselves enough to act on our ideas. It's time you realize the genius in you.

Seed Newsvine

Bookmark this article in your preferred program

Comments

Add Comment

Popular Articles in this cathegory

This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 License.