With all said and done, the important question, which get stuck in mind is, how does one activate creative thinking in life and work and enjoy fun with intelligence. You may be wondering, “Okay, we are convinced that creative thinking is important, But how do I find the creativity within me?

Here are few easy ways to practice it:

1. Ask the Right Questions

Creativity is largely a matter of asking the right questions. Wrong questions shut down the process of creative thinking. They direct thinkers down the same old path, or they chide them into believing that thinking isn’t necessary at all. To stimulate creative thinking, ask yourself right questions such as : Why must it be done this way? What does this remind me of? What is the opposite? Who has a different perspective on this? What happens if we don’t do it at all? This means you are challenging the status quo by asking right questions and spotting the answers for them which will activate a new line of options within you. You get the idea—and you can probably come up with better questions yourself. Physicist Tom Hirschfield said: “If you don’t ask, ‘Why this?’ often enough, somebody will ask, ‘Why you?’ that’s why you must ask good questions. You must challenge the process. Slowly creativity will emerge as process.

2. Develop a Creative Environment

Negative environments kill thousands of great ideas every minute. A new idea is delicate. It can be killed by a yawn; or by a blink of eye. A Creative environment on the other side is like a incubation centre or a greenhouse where you seed the ideas and things start taking shape and grow over a period.

A creative environment: Encourages Creativity: When innovation and good thinking are openly encouraged and rewarded, then people see that they have permission to be creative.

Creativity places a High Value on Trust among Team Members and Individuality: Creativity always risks failure. That’s why trust is so important to creative people.

Is Willing to Let People Go Outside the Lines: Most people automatically stay within lines, even if those lines have been arbitrarily drawn or are terribly out of date. Remember, most limitations we face are not imposed on us by others; we place them on ourselves

Appreciates the Power of a Dream: A creative environment promotes the freedom of a dream. A creative environment encour “ages the use of a blank sheet of paper and the question, “If we could draw a picture of what we want to accomplish, what would that look like?”

3. Remove Creativity Killers

We valued the warmth of creativity over cold facts. If you do too, then you need to eliminate attitudes that devalue creative thinking. Take a look at the following phrases. They are almost guaranteed to kill creative thinking any time you hear (or think) them: like

Don’t Ask Questions, Don’t Be Different, There Is Only One Way, Be Practical, That’s Not Logical, It’s Not Practical, We Tried That Before, We Can’t Afford to Make a Mistake, Yes, But…etc. so on so forth.

If you think you have a great idea, don’t let anyone talk you out of it even if it sounds foolish. Don’t let yourself or anyone else subject you to creativity killers. After all, you can’t do something new and exciting if you force yourself to stay in the same old rut. Don’t just work harder at the same old thing. Make a change.

1. Spend Time with Other Creative People

At times you get stuck in environment which is not in your control but there are few things you can do to keep yourself going in right direction. What if the place you work has an environment hostile to creativity, and you possess little ability to change it? One possibility is to change jobs. But what if you desire to keep working there despite the negative environment? Your best option is to find a way to spend time with other creative people.

Creativity is contagious. Have you ever noticed what happens during a good brainstorming session? One person throws out an idea. Another person uses it as a springboard to discover another “idea. Someone else takes it in yet another, even better direction. Then somebody grabs hold of it and takes it to a whole new level. The interplay of ideas can be electric.

It’s a fact that you begin to think like the people you spend a lot of time with. The more time you can spend with creative people engaging in creative activities, the more creative you will become.

5. Get Out of Your Box

Out of box thinking doesn’t mean you need to necessarily break rules but break the boundaries of your thinking. Creative thinkers know that they must repeatedly break out of the “box” of their own history and personal limitations in order to experience creative breakthroughs.

The most effective way to help yourself get One way you can do that is by traveling to new places. Explore other cultures, countries, and traditions. Find out how people very different from you live and think. Another is to read on new subjects. If you want to break out of your own box, get into somebody’s else’s. Read broadly.

Many people mistakenly believe that if individuals aren’t born with creativity, they will never be creative. But you can see from the many strategies and examples I’ve given that creativity can be cultivated in the right supportive environment.”

Inspire from, “How Successful People Think.”.