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How to Have Fun and Stimulate Your Creative Thinking

by Alex Vermeule posted May 5th, 2009 at 16:24

Last week, while watching the kids of good friends play with sidewalk chalk in our yard, I remembered something Pablo Piscasso once said:

Every child is an artist. Your challenge is to remain an artist after you grow up.

As you mature, your mind develops certain viewpoints. It becomes harder to open your mind to new ideas, let alone think out of the box. Keeping your mind in a playful state helps you to open up to creative thinking.

So how do you keep a playful frame of mind?

Get Inspired by Kids

Children are constantly developing their view of the world and remind you there are always different ways to look at things.

For example, take the result of the creative play the kids made in our yard. They called it ‘how our earth works’, see for yourself:

How to Have Fun and Stimulate Your Creative Thinking

Their explanation was that everything revolves around love, isn’t that a fantastic view?

Change Your Viewpoint

While making the drawing, one of the kids asked her mother, ‘Mom, what is the deepest part of our earth?’.

‘The deepest part of our earth, would be the centre of it,’ her mother replied.

‘No, the deepest part of the earth is where the moles live!’ the youngest of the two shouted in all her enthusiasm.

Again another great example of a different viewpoint. Very often you must change your view to get fresh ideas and see possible solutions.

Challenge Yourself

In life and business we face many challenges. To overcome them, why don’t you take the view of a child into account? Next time you are working on a concept or problem, ask yourself these questions:

  • What would the perspective of a kid be, on the concept or problem you are currently working on?
  • How do you make what you are doing more fun?
  • Can you approach what you are doing like a game?
  • How would you make it easier so that a kid understands it too?

When you challenge yourself to think more like a kid, you regain the creative power that comes with a playful frame of mind. And you hopefully have some great fun in the process!

How do you stimulate your creative thinking?

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Tags: Change, Creative Thinking, Fun, Strategy
Categories: Personal Innovation


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3
reactions to: How to Have Fun and Stimulate Your Creative Thinking

i walk on the web:)

Exploring the web is a great way for discovering resources you’ll use to create new ideas :-D

stijn says:

This is great! And the kids are too!! It’s true.. Everything realy does revolve around love! Keep that in mind when you’re about to stress out of work. =)

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