5 Secrets To Boost Your Creativity

Creativity derives from the Latin “creare”, which means to produce something out of nothing. In 1950 the psychologist Joy Paul Guilford delivered his “Creativity” lecture at the American Psychological Association. For him creativity means fleeing the obvious, the safe and the predictable to produce something that is novel.

In general, creativity is a difficult concept to define, since some authors frame it within intelligence, while others maintain that creativity is a gift for everyone.

The concept of creativity does not apply only to art but to all aspects of life:  science, economics, personal relationships, etc. Creativity can be defined as the generation of new ideas or concepts, or new associations between known ideas and concepts, to produce original solutions.

First secret of creativity: we are all creative

The book The Element , by Sir Ken Robinson and Lou Aronica and begins by telling a beautiful story :

“A few years ago I heard a wonderful story that I really like to tell. An elementary school teacher was giving a drawing class to a group of six-year-old children.

At the back of the classroom sat a girl who didn’t usually pay much attention ; but in drawing class he did.

For more than twenty minutes the girl sat before a sheet of paper, completely absorbed in what she was doing. The teacher found this fascinating.

In the end he asked him what he was drawing. Without looking up, the girl replied: “I am drawing God. ” Surprised, the teacher said, “But no one knows what God looks like.”

The girl replied: “They will know right away.”

A story that teaches

I love this story because it reminds us that children have amazing confidence in their imaginations. Therefore, creativity is related to imagination and all children are imaginative. Why do adults seem to have lost the ability to create, to imagine?

According to Sir Ken Robinson, the loss of imagination or creativity in many adults is related to the current educational system. Western educational systems are based on schemes from the time of the Industrial Revolution and are not designed to encourage creative activities such as music, painting, or dancing.

On the contrary, skills related to the economy and economic development in general are fostered. The purely economic approach of the educational system has resulted in the lack of development of creative skills in any field.

The six thinking hats

Edward de Bono, a Maltese writer and psychologist, devised a technique called the Six Hats Method for Thinking. Each hat is a different color and represents a way of thinking.

• The white hat represents the facts and information.
• The red hat, emotions and feelings.
• The yellow hat represents rationality and is used to analyze the positive aspects.
• The black hat is the opposite of yellow and is used to compare the negative aspects of an idea.
• The green hat is the hat of creativity, of the generation of ideas through various techniques, such as brainstorming.
• The blue hat is the one worn by the person who leads the debate, who determines the change of hats and summarizes what happened.

The six hats method is very useful for generating new ideas in a group, so that teamwork and creativity are encouraged.

Semantic associations

We all have the ability to remember concepts, but we can develop the ability to remember words that designate the same object and associate words in an ingenious way, producing irony, humor and metaphors with language.

Semantic creativity is based on joining and associating concepts that apparently would not be related. In this way we create a linguistic expression that will have a new meaning.

Third secret: innovate

Do not stop experimenting, trying, generating new ideas, no matter how crazy they may seem. Try to develop lateral thinking.

In schools they teach us to use vertical or logical thinking, but it is incomplete. It must be accompanied by what Edward de Bono called lateral thinking, which is a way of thinking that addresses all possible aspects of a topic.

Both thoughts are not mutually exclusive, but rather complement each other. 

Secret room: get bored

Many times doing repetitive or boring activities, our brain has enough time to generate new and creative ideas. Some of the best ideas come when you’re bored or sleeping, so set aside a time each day to get bored ironing, cleaning, driving, etc.

Fifth secret: don’t stop learning

Throughout our lives, we can keep learning. We must be curious, not lose our ability to surprise ourselves. Read a lot, travel, always ask yourself why.

We learn from our experiences, from the skills we foster, from other people we work with, and above all we learn from our own mistakes.