3 keys to a more creative life
How many times have you heard the following phrases? More specifically, how many times have you said these phrases yourself?
If you are looking for someone who is creative, you may want to look elsewhere.
me? creative? No way.
I'm probably the least creative person you'll ever meet.
Go see X if you want an innovative solution.
Am I creative or not creative?
There is a compelling tendency for people to downplay their creative talents or to place limits on their creative output. Many people think that they are not creative simply because they were not born with a creative gene or a "basket" of creative traits.
Not having these qualities becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. As a result, a person's confidence diminishes, erodes and disappears. We often fall into the common perception that we are either creative or we are not. We belong to one group or another. There is no common ground. We think, "If I'm not creative, I never will be."
But this is a myth. Dividing people into two groups, the creative group and the non-creative group is unrealistic. We as individuals are all creative as children; It's just that this creativity is subdued as we get older and start dealing with the realities of everyday life.
Several years ago, Yale University psychologist David Perkins wrote that creativity is often the product of ordinary cognitive processes that nearly everyone uses in their normal life path. Since the publication of this work, his conclusions have been corroborated by legions of other psychological experts. Their research also supports a universal argument that creativity processes are not exceptional.
daily cognitive processes
Perkins explained that there are three everyday cognitive processes that are integral to creative invention.
One of these processes is directed memory
It is the ability to direct your memory in order to make conscious some previous experience or knowledge to deal with many different obstacles, for example, when you think of as many countries that begin with the letter s as possible. Or what are five similarities between apples and oranges? To do this, you have to engage in the same kind of thinking as scientists, historians, and mathematicians.
The second relativistic cognitive process is recognizing the similarity between one problem and another
Watch a child build a tower of wooden blocks. He understands that some blocks work better than others (based on his past experiences with cubes), and will often make corrections based on past experiences. Or imagine that you are developing a marketing plan for a new product. What items from previous campaigns were successful enough that they can be used again in the current operation? What new items should be developed from scratch?
The third cognitive process is reverse recognition
This is the ability to recognize objects, in another important creative process, for example, you might go out and notice a cloud that looks like a certain animal (cow, dog, etc.). Or you might be in a social engagement and see someone who looks like your sister's husband or aunt, for example. This ability engages our imaginations and allows us to interpret events in imaginative ways.
The conclusion that can be drawn is that the same cognitive processes used to create innovative inventions and new dynamic methods in fields as diverse as medicine, education, architecture, business, agriculture, and engineering are similar to those that you and I use. Often in our daily life. The key is to make these cognitive processes an important part of all our creative efforts.
In conclusion, the idea that we are divided into two groups, the group of creators and the group of non-creators is a myth, as we all have creative abilities, and these creative abilities help us in running our lives efficiently and effectively, and they are the same abilities that scientists use in different fields to develop their creativity and inventions.
