Creative thinking exercises sounds like something that should be a lot of hard work. The true purpose of exercise in fact, is to loosen up the muscles and after some practice make them stronger.
The same theory applies to creative thinking exercises. Thinking can be hard work but the more you do it the easier it gets. Just like flexing your body muscles working your creative muscles loosens them up and makes them stronger.
Getting into the habit of practicing to be creative sometimes takes time. Most people think creativity should come naturally, that it should be spontaneous. When they try it they can’t understand why things aren’t flowing effortlessly. A great many things hinge on your thinking and the ability to do it freely. Stress and fatigue can contribute but…
Your subconscious is a driving factor.
From the time you are very tiny you are told to behave a certain way, don’t do this, don’t do that. Most of these things are meant for your safety and well being but as you get older you are pushed into conforming to what the ‘norm’ is. As an adult you are so constricted sometimes that you begin to feel self conscious about nearly everything. It makes being spontaneous almost impossible.
It’s this constriction you need to loosen up. You’ve damped down your subconscious until it doesn’t have a voice anymore. In the beginning you have to concentrate and focus to free that spontaneous spirit inside you. That sounds an awful lot like an oxymoron but thinking boils down to using your brain, which works like a complex muscle. The more you flex it the stronger it gets. The more often you focus on using your subconscious, the more easily it will be able to rise to the top until you are using it without noticing you are doing so.
You can feel free to go a bit ‘out there’ while you’re at it.
The fun part about being creative is that you get to be creative. If you think about that for a moment it makes perfect sense. It stands to reason then that creative thinking techniques should also be creative and, I’m a firm believer, fun.
You’ll find a lot of standard creative thinking exercises in books and all over the web, exercises like going for a walk, taking a shower, using word prompts. They’re all good and proven to work, use them. I’m hoping the creative exercises you find here will be ones you find a little out of the ordinary.
The idea is to spark something different inside you, to start a whole new surge of ideas flowing through your mind.
And then you just got to do it.
Theory is useful, absolutely necessary and totally useless if you don’t put it into practice. It’s fine to read as many articles and tutorials as you can find, and you’ll never run out, there are literally thousands of articles about creative thinking techniques. In order for you to get anything out of them though, you have to try them. Physically put into practice what you read.
It’s like the guy who swore he could fly a 747-“I read everything ever written about it.” You wouldn’t even think about climbing on board with him as your pilot. The same theory applies to your creativity, use it, use it and use it some more. It’s the only way to become familiar with your creative self and grow stronger.
Creative thinking exercises are like any exercises out there, in order for them to truly work for you, you have to work them first.