Rise to the Challenge: How to Cultivate and Nurture Your Inner Innovator

Creative thinking is a valuable skill that can help you come up with fresh and innovative ideas, tackle challenges, and create captivating experiences. Whether you're working in a creative field or not, having strong creative problem-solving skills can be incredibly beneficial.

Think about it, the ability to generate original ideas and solve complex problems is in high demand across a variety of industries. By cultivating your own creativity, you'll be better equipped to adapt to changing situations and stay competitive in today's rapidly-evolving world.

Every project we have embarked on over the year has required us to reach for a new level of creativity and daily we are solving problems!

Here are some tips and strategies for fostering creativity in your personal and professional life.

Make time for brainstorming: Setting aside dedicated time for brainstorming is an effective way to generate new and original ideas. By carving out specific time for this task, you can focus your attention on the creative process without distractions. Personally, I've only started to incorporate this practice into my routine over the last year. For example, when I have a design project to work on, I make sure to set aside 15 minutes beforehand to brainstorm and think through my ideas. This helps me to stay on track and come up with fresh solutions to design challenges.

Consider changing your environment: Creating an environment that supports brainstorming can help you come up with better ideas. This means finding a space that's free of distractions and interruptions, and that allows you to focus your attention on the task at hand. For me, I've found that changing my physical environment can be a great way to get my creative juices flowing. Personally, I feel most creative when I'm in the water - swimming or floating. There's something about being in a different environment that helps me to think more creatively and come up with fresh ideas. So if you're feeling stuck, consider changing up your environment and seeing if that helps to spark your imagination.

Tools: Using tools to help you organise and visualise your ideas can be a useful way to boost your creativity. Some people find it helpful to create visual diagrams to systematise their ideas and understand how they fit together. Personally, I like to use the online tool 'Milanote' for this purpose. Milanote offers mind-mapping features that help me to create relationships between ideas and see how they connect. By visualising my thoughts in this way, I'm able to come up with more innovative solutions. If you're ever struggling to organise your thoughts, consider using a tool like Milanote to help you see the bigger picture.

Get diverse perspectives: Getting diverse perspectives can be a valuable way to expand your thinking and come up with new ideas. One approach is to engage with people from a variety of backgrounds and industries to gain a spectrum of viewpoints on a particular problem or challenge. This can help you to break out of your usual way of thinking and consider fresh solutions. To take it a step further, consider actually calling someone for their input - you might be surprised at how willing people are to help. Personally, I'm grateful for all the people who take my calls and offer their perspectives.

Take breaks and recharge: Taking breaks and engaging in activities that bring you joy can help to boost creativity and rejuvenate your mind. Personally, I find that taking a short walk around the block is a great way to clear my head and gain a fresh perspective when I'm feeling stuck on a problem. By stepping away from the task at hand and giving my brain a chance to recharge, I'm often able to come up with new and innovative ideas when I return.

Practice mindfulness: Practising mindfulness can be an effective way to improve your creative problem-solving skills. By focusing your attention on the present moment, you can become more aware of your thoughts and ideas, helping you to tune out distractions and stay focused on troubleshooting problems and generating new ideas. Mindfulness practices, such as meditation or yoga, can help to nurture mindfulness and boost your ability to think creatively.

Experiment and play: Tackle problems with a sense of fun and playfulness. This can support thinking outside the box and conceiving of new and innovative ideas.

The Creative Solutionist Workshop by Nexperk

Is your organisation looking to develop its problem-solving skills and promote innovation in its problem-solving approach? The Creative Solutionist workshop can help! We're proud to say that we've successfully delivered this program to companies like Bridgestone and NEC, and we're ready to bring this experience to your organisation.

Our program is designed to teach individuals and teams a range of creative problem-solving techniques, including brainstorming, lateral thinking, and design thinking.

Through a range of activities and exercises, your team will have the opportunity to put these techniques into practice, building confidence in their ability to find innovative solutions to challenging problems.

Check out our range of Powerskills by Nexperk Workshops on our Website or reach out to be direct, I'm always happy to help or just have a chat!

Vanessa :)