Think for Creativity

“Think” is one of the Create 8 skills essential for boosting creativity. Whether you’re trying to generate ideas or select the best solution, developing your thinking is beneficial.

 

Creative thinking requires more than just brainstorming; it involves selecting the best solution. This dance between generating ideas and choosing the best idea is at the heart of creative thinking. Researchers identify two types of thinking to explain this concept: divergent and convergent thinking.

Divergent thinking involves the exploration and generation of ideas. Today we think of this process as brainstorming or coming up with many ideas. Convergent thinking includes critical thinking, analysis, evaluation, and selecting a solution or idea. Selecting a single answer to a multiple-choice test question is an example of convergent thinking.

Practice Think: New Dinner Ideas

Divergent Practice

The next time you are faced with the age-old question “What is for dinner?” embrace it. Open the refrigerator and cupboards and start generating every meal idea that could be assembled from the ingredients on hand. Disregard the feelings that seem to undermine your ideas and instead create three new meal ideas. Be sure to consider all meal ideas, even those that are normally reserved for other times of the day.

Convergent Practice

Select one of these new meal ideas and prepare it for dinner. Even though it may feel wrong or a bit crazy, go with it and make the choice

Meditation for Think

Sit up straight with your feet resting on the floor.

Close your eyes or cast your gaze downward.

This meditation is called box breathing.

Inhale a deep, slow breath through your nose as you count 1, 2, 3, 4.

Hold your breath for a count of 1, 2, 3, 4.

Slowly exhale through your nose for a count of 1, 2, 3, 4.

That is one breath cycle. Repeat five times

Living Creatively

“Think” is one of the essential Create 8 skills for enhancing creativity. It involves both generating ideas (divergent thinking) and selecting the best solution (convergent thinking). Divergent thinking is about brainstorming and exploring many ideas, while convergent thinking focuses on critical analysis and choosing the best option.

To practice divergent thinking, try generating various meal ideas from available ingredients without self-criticism. For convergent thinking, pick one of the generated ideas and prepare it for dinner, even if it feels unconventional.

Additionally, a meditation technique called box breathing can help improve focus and clarity. Sit comfortably, inhale slowly for a count of four, hold for four, exhale for four, and repeat this cycle five times.