The Power of Creative Thinking

What is creative thinking?

As you may be aware, there are two sides – or hemispheres – to the brain: the left brain and the right brain. The left brain is said to be the seat of our rational or logical faculties. The right brain is the seat of our creative faculties, our hunches, intuitions, and imagination. Successful people use their right brain for creative planning. They focus on possibilities: the big picture, the future; ‘what can be’ – rather than ‘what is’, ‘what was’ or what the limitations are.

“Imagination is more important than knowledge.” - Albert Einstein

Brainstorming

Brainstorming is a simple technique for generating ideas, which is frequently used in business organizations to foster creativity and complex problem-solving. Brainstorming is perhaps most effective for a group or team of people, because one person’s idea or viewpoint sparks off another and inspirations ‘piggyback’ on each other, leading in directions that no one individual might have gone. But it works well for individuals too, because the other key point of brainstorming is to turn off the little voice in our heads that act as Inner Critic and Editor of our creative thoughts.

When I started out as an author, my editor gave me a piece of useful advice. She told me that the main reason people find difficulty writing – anything from a letter to a novel – is that they do not separate the ‘writer’ from the ‘editor’ in their heads. The moment the writer gets down a sentence, the editor jumps on it, suggesting that it could be put another way, or that the grammar doesn’t look right, or that it’s not punchy enough. 

There’s nothing wrong with that editor's voice: it’s just trying to help – and it will make a huge contribution later, when there’s a manuscript to pull into shape and polish. But when there’s a blank page to fill and ideas to capture, it’s a real killer of the flow of ideas... We need to turn off that voice, somehow, so that the writer can get its ideas flowing, and get them down on paper, and maintain the excitement and inspiration and momentum. Then there’s something for the editor to work with.

Same with any kind of creative thinking. If the moment you come up with an idea, your Critic voice pipes up and says ‘ That’ll never work!’ or ‘That’s just silly!’ or any kind of ‘But...’ – the potential of that idea will be dropped, and the flow of other ideas, which might have come from it, blocked. So what if it’s a silly idea or an impractical idea? There might be something in it that sparks another thought. Something you can use. Or a minute later, another idea might come along that makes it less impractical...

Brainstorming involves throwing ideas ‘out there’, and writing them all down as they come – and deliberately not questioning, examining or censoring them in any way. The brainstorming process is one of quick-fire, off-the-wall, ‘hey-what-about-this?’, anything-goes thinking. No holding back, no ‘buts’, no retractions...

Once the flow of ideas has definitely dried up (and it’s worth pushing past the initial slow-down stage for a while, as ideas – like athletes – get their second wind...), then you get a chance to review all the ideas on the page: to cross off the joke ones, to consider practicalities, to evaluate, and to choose the ideas that your Inner Critic thinks are sensible, doable and worthwhile. This evaluation stage should be reassuring enough to create a real safety zone around the brainstorming session. You can give your ‘right brain’ permission to come up with the craziest, most reckless, most innovative ideas – knowing that you won’t be asked to do anything that your sensible, responsible, logical ‘left brain’ doesn’t approve of!