How can you enhance your creative thinking abilities?
Creative thinking is one of the most important skills for all CEOs, entrepreneurs, and real estate investors today. If you can get great at creative thinking, you can overcome any challenges. You can thrive when others are barely trying to survive market changes. Without creativity, someone will certainly surpass you, and could derail your goals. How can we learn, train, and empower ourselves to be more mentally creative?
- Practice Problem Solving
The best way to get better at anything is to practice. You can make this practical or fun. Take time to think and try to solve future problems for your business. “What if X happens?” “How can I grow my business if Y?” You can also have a lot of fun with it. Solve puzzles, play with ideas for solving customer service and business challenges everywhere you go. Getting your kids involved in this at an early age can do wonders for building their creative thinking abilities too.
- Host Brainstorming Sessions
Today’s businesses and investors must be constantly innovating. So, get your peers or team together, and brainstorm new innovations and solutions. It can be to tackle current challenges, to stay ahead of future ones, or just to drive your business and investments to the next level first. Make it a regular thing. It could be monthly, quarterly, or annually. It can be in person or online.
- Listen
Listening is one of the best ways to tap into all of the creativity out there in the world. There are many ways to do it. Listening to music has been proven to help build your creativity and brain power. Just listen to whatever makes you feel great. Read books and listen to the words of others and how they found creative solutions. Or listen to podcasts. Podcasts are a great way to constantly feed your mind fresh information in a new medium.
- Strategy Games
Test yourself with strategy games. It could be chess, backgammon, or cards. Find an online version and spend a few minutes making moves each day. Host a monthly game night with friends and ex-coworkers. Or join a local meetup group that does this type of thing.
- Play with Your Kids
If you are a parent, there is nothing as valuable and rewarding as spending time with your kids. That can be true at any age. There are so many activities to pick from which can help you both boost your brain’s ability to think. Often this just comes from doing something new, and forcing your brain to think differently. You can go bounce on trampolines, play ball in the park, get down on the floor and make something with Playdough, create art, or go bowling. Just keep trying out and experiencing new things.
- Make YouTube Videos
Video is proving to be one of the most powerful branding and advertising tools out there today. Getting better at it, will be a big asset to you. For most, it is also a new challenge and skill which will demand some creative thinking to master. You don’t need to craft amazing Hollywood worthy movies from the get-go. Just have fun. Publish them or just use it as a way to journal. This is another powerful way to engage with your kids and teens if you have them too. It’s one of their preferred ways to digest entertainment and communicate. So, use this as a way to stay connected to them. They might even teach you a thing or two about video marketing.
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Learn a New Skill
Learning new things require our brains to grow and create new connections and pathways. Plus, there is no better investment we can make than in learning. It could be learning how to play the guitar, how to design in Adobe, a DIY task like putting in kitchen cabinets, or gardening. Just pick something. You’ll probably find a way to incorporate what you learn into your business too.
- Exercise
Physical exercise is one of the best ways to boost our creative thinking. Make it a regular habit every day. Keep changing it up too, in order to keep growing your mind. Try walking, running, martial arts, yoga, on-demand fitness programs, tennis, swimming, and new sports.
- Hire for It
Some of us just seem to be born with more creativity than others. We all have our strong suits. We should all keep trying to build our own creative thinking skills. Yet, if this isn’t one of your strong suits, then hire some people who are very strong in this area. Use them as consultants, on your board, or in your marketing department.
- Travel
There are few things that will help expand your mind and give you new perspectives like travelling can. In fact, if you study great innovators and leaders, like Einstein, you’ll find they typically made their big discoveries when they left their desks, and did something different; like rising a bus or talking a walk. Famous writers like Twain and Hemmingway have left trails of places they went and lived to get inspired. So, take off and find a new setting. Go to Cancun for the weekend, or Costa Rica for a month, or spend the summer exploring the adventures and volunteering options in the Dominican Republic.
What ideas can you think up to boost your creative thinking skills?
