Unclog Your Creative Potential

Article by Daniel Theyagu 16 September 2020

There is an expression – that there is nothing new under the sun. Considerable amount of people believe that there is no more opportunities out there. Common expressions such as: ‘the good jobs have all been taken’; ‘I don’t have the calibre to be better than the next person’; ‘if I wait long enough I will get an idea as to what to do’. 

So here is the reality mate! – these are mere excuses for not succeeding in your life.

Success is your birthright and it is up to you to initiate the process. Don’t wait for the right moment as there is no such thing except the moment you are in now. What you can do is to unclog the creative potential that is residing deep inside your grey matter in the 1.3 kilogram walnut. There is a general misconception that it takes a special breed of people to be creative. This is a false premise and what you can do is to apply certain mind tools to help you unclog your creative potential. Here are some:

Applied Imagination

You can unleash your creative potential by using ‘Applied Imagination’. This term was coined in the 1950s by Alex Osborn. He suggested that creativity stems from the human mind’s ability to look at situation in an innovative manner that we all are capable of if we use our imagination. Imagination is the seed of creativity. When you apply this to the problem or situation that is confronting you the ideas will start to flow.

 For instance, in 1810 the canned food appeared in the scene. To open these cans required a can opener. Many subsequent inventors tried making a better can opener. Ermal Cleon Fraze decided to do some applied imagination to the situation. What if an opening tool was added to the can itself without the need to have a can opener? This question was answer by the pop-top aluminium can in 1959. 

Convergent Thinking

Creativity is not necessarily about thinking out of the box. To be an excellent creative thinker, you need to use convergent thinking. This involves you focusing on a problem that you are facing and eliminating the unnecessary details and coming up with a solution that works. Convergent thinking helps you focus your thought process on the problem without getting distracted. However you need to be clear as to what is it that you want and work towards that goal. Chester Carlson invented the photocopier in 1938. Eventually his company came to be known as Xerox. However the early photocopiers were expensive and unpopular. With convergent thinking on how to get corporations to use the photocopier Xerox came up with a brilliant idea of renting it rather than selling it to the companies. This allowed the companies to use the machine but leaving the maintenance to Xerox.

Divergent thinking

Creativity is also about divergent thinking. This is when you are in a status quo position that is not really desirable and you want to move yourself to a better ideal situation. Divergent thinking allows you to look at new ideas and possible solutions to resolve the issue at hand. This is when you need to think out of the box. But to do this you have to be clear of the direction in which you want to go and work towards it in an objective and constructive way. Creative divergent thinking involves gathering of as much data as possible and seeing how to use these data effectively in helping resolve the problem or finding a new and innovative solution. In a way this is when you need to think out of the box. An example: when timber is cut there is lots of sawdust being produced which are treated as both being hazardous to health and as waste. Can the sawdust be used for something else instead? With divergent creative thinking sawdust has found many other uses. These include uses such as cat litter, chipboard and fuel. 

Bisociation

This was coined by Arthur Koestler in his 1964 book ‘The Act of Creation’. It means the ability to relate things that were previously unrelated. For instance if you were to take a panther which is black and imagine it was pink you get the iconic pink panther. Alexander Graham Bell invented the telephone, Guglielmo Marconi invented the radio. Although these two men never met today most of us carry a device that combines these two inventions – the mobile phone. And whilst we are on this subject, George Eastman made cameras that even a child can operate. Combine this camera to the phone and what do you have? 

So spend some time picking on the inner realms of your wonderful brain to see how you can unclog your creative potential and be a tremendous asset to your organization. 

Written by Daniel Theyagu (16 September 2020)