Develop Creativity Using This Technique

Would you like to develop creativity in your approach to life's challenges? You can start by habitually using a technique or two designed to get your thinking out of the box. The following is one such technique that you can learn and put to use today.

Habitually Change Your Perspective To Develop Creativity

Perhaps you've heard the expression, "there is more than one side to every story," but how often do you actually look for the other side? We tend to stick with the perspective that we already have when approaching life's problems. If you want to develop your creative problem solving abilities, changing this habit is a good place to start.

For the sake of an example, we'll suppose you work for an animal shelter and your goal is to place more dogs and cats with good families. One common perspective might be to think about how to "sell" people on the idea of adopting the animals, or appeal to their sympathy. Instead, try to think about it from the animal's perspective, and imagine what the animal would be looking for in a human owner.

My mind quickly imagines an advertising campaign with "Human Wanted" ads. "Small collie looking for a human caretaker with a yard and time to play with me. Offers love and affection in exchange." "Persian cat looking for a man or woman with a house or large apartment. I prefer to stay indoors and need at least one window that allows me to take my nap in the sun. I purr when petted."

How can you change your perspective, adopting new ones for creative solutions to problems? That's something more easily demonstrated than explained in theory. It can involve looking at a problem or issue from some other place (literally or metaphorically), with other eyes, from a different point in time, or with a wider or narrower view of the situation. It isn't necessarily about satisfying the goal from the other perspective, but about suggesting new ideas to work with.

Another Example

What if an investor was looking at houses in a neighborhood, and he wasn't sure if he wanted to be a landlord or just buy a house to fix and sell. He starts with the usual perspective of "How do I make money with this?" But remembering that he's trying to develop creativity in his approach, he considers other perspectives on the issue.

He asks, "What would renters like me to do?" Some would like to buy instead of renting he realizes, which suggests that there might be good profits to be made buying and then selling on easy terms to those renters who want to be owners.

Next he asks, "what would the neighbors want me to do? That reminds him of a comment one local made about the trashy houses bringing down property values in the neighborhood. Our investor has a new idea: buy the three worst houses on the street, make them look good, and the value of each of them would likely be raised by more than if he just fixed up one, because he improved the appearance of the whole area. In fact, the example he sets might even encourage others to clean up their homes and yards.

These two perspectives still relate back to his primary one of making money, but this won't always be the case. If he imagined looking back on his investing activity from thirty years in the future, he could realize that he doesn't want to be involved in real estate at all. Such a perspective could lead to ideas for a life that is more fulfilling. He may take an imagined perspective from high above, looking down on the area, and this might encourage him to build homes that don't impact the environment too heavily.

One of the most famous examples of using an imaginative and even "crazy" perspective is that of Einstein visualizing himself riding a beam of light. It helped him create his theory of relativity, and it's a great demonstration of how to develop creativity by consciously choosing to look at things from other perspectives.