Creativity is a very desired skill in both professional and personal life. Perhaps many even write it in their resume. But it can be rather difficult to put it into words about what exactly is creativity and even more difficult would be to answer how creativity can be learned.
What is creativity?
Creativity is the skill of producing novel, more effective and sometimes aesthetic ideas or solutions to any problem. It involves production of novel and original ideas or solutions to problems. These solutions must be reality oriented, constructive and socially desirable to be classified as creative ideas.
Often misunderstood, creativity is not always insight based(as shown in movies when a light bulb illuminates over the head of a person when they get a creative idea).
To understand more about creativity, we should look at some characteristics of creative people
Characteristics of creative people:
According to research by Csikszentmihalyi (1997):
1. Creative people usually have a broad range of knowledge about a lot of subjects and are good at using mental imagery.
2. Creative people aren’t afraid to be different—they are more open to new experiences than many people, and they tend to have more vivid dreams and daydreams than others do.
3. Creative people value their independence.
4. Creative people are often unconventional in their work, but not otherwise.
5. Creative thinkers will obviously be less prone to some of the barriers to problem solving, such as functional fixedness and mental set.
7. Creative thinkers often make links and connections at a level of consciousness just below alert awareness, so that ideas can flow freely without being censored by the higher mental processes (Goleman, 1995).
Theorists in the field of creative thinking have found through examining the habits of highly creative people that the most productive periods of Creative thinking for those people tend to occur when they are doing some task or activity that is more or less automatic, such as walking or swimming (Csikszentmihalyi, 1996; Gardner, 1993a; Goleman, 1995). These automatic tasks take up some attention processes, leaving the remainder to devote to creative thinking.
How can you cultivate creative thinking:
Good observational skills: Spot problems, Missing information, anomalies, Gaps, deficiencies and so on.
Broad Spectrum and depth of Knowledge: Cultivate habit of wider reading, exposure to variety of information and develop art of asking questions.
Fluency: Try to generate as many ideas, responses, solutions or suggestions on a given task.
Flexibility: Try deliberately looking for multiple angels of task and situation to increase the flexibility in your thinking
Osborn's brainstorming can be used to increase fluency and flexibility of ideas to open-ended situations. It can be practiced by playing games with family members and friends.
Imagination over Judgement on ideas till all the ideas are exhausted. Never accept the first idea and don’t judge any idea as silly till you have a number of ideas.
Originality can be developed by practicing fluency, flexibility, habit of associative thinking, fusing distinct or remote ideas.
Looking for solutions opposite to obvious. Allow conflicting thoughts to exist.
Rearranging pieces of ideas: A creative thinker does not evolve new ideas but evolve new combinations of ideas. Like comedians linking daily life problems with humour.
Engage more frequently in activities which require use of imagination and original thinking rather than routine work. Giving new twists to stories, poems. Developing and solving riddles and puzzles.
Get feedback on solutions from someone less personally involved in the task.
Give ideas the chance to incubate. Give them some time to grow in mind without forcing it too much.
Delayed gratification: Resist temptation for immediate reward.
Encourage Self-evaluation.
Visualize cause and consequences and think ahead, predicting things that have never happened.
Be aware of your own defences concerning the problem. If we feel threatened by a problem, we are less likely to think of creative ideas
Have Self-confidence and positivity for your potential of creativity.
How to cultivate creativity in children:
Above exercise can be used with children also(as per their level of cognitive development). Just few extra things to remember are:
1. Never ridicule them about their solutions, no matter how absurd they might seem to you. Instead, provide constructive criticism and reward them for their efforts
2. Teach them to not get frustrated when it takes too long to find a creative solution to a problem.
Do remember that Creativity is skill which can be learned. Yes, it will take considerable time and practice to learn it but it will be well worth the effort.