FREE online courses on Introduction to Creative Thinking - Myths about Creative Thinking and Problem Solving - Miscellaneous Good Attitudes

 

Perseverance

 

Most people fail because they spend only nine minutes on a problem that requires ten minutes to solve. Creativity and problem solving are hard work and require fierce application of time and energy. There is no quick and easy secret. You need knowledge gained by study and research and you must put your knowledge to work by hard thinking and protracted experimentation. You've surely read of the difficulties and setbacks faced by most of the famous inventors--how many filaments Edison tried before he found a working one, how many aircraft designs failed in the attempt to break the sound barrier. But planning to persevere is planning to succeed.

 

A flexible imagination

 

Creative people are comfortable with imagination and with thinking so-called weird, wild, or unthinkable thoughts, just for the sake of stimulation. During brainstorming or just mental playfulness, all kinds of strange thoughts and ideas can be entertained. And the mind, pragmatist that it is, will probably find something useful in it all. We will look at several examples of this later on.

 

A belief that mistakes are welcome

 

Modern society has for some reason conceived the idea that the only unforgivable thing is to fail or make a mistake. Actually failure is an opportunity; mistakes show that something is being done. So creative people have come to realize and accept emotionally that making mistakes is no negative biggie. One chief executive of a big American corporation warns all his newly hired managers, "Make sure you make a reasonable number of mistakes." Mistakes are educational and can lead to success--because they mean you are doing something.

 

Sir Francis Pettit Smith, one of the early developers of the screw propeller, tried one design in 1836. During the test, half of it broke off--what a failure--but then the boat increased in speed substantially, revealing the efficiency of a new design, formed from a mistake.

 

In sum, as Vergil once said, "They can who think they can." Having the proper positive attitude about generating new and useful ideas and solving problems is really a large part of the whole process.

 

A few years ago, the pipes in my mom's house had finally rusted through and I was faced with the task of finding a plumber to get a bid. Knowing how much they charge for small repairs, I knew that doing a whole house would cost a fortune. I thought, "You know, I'd really like to do this job myself, but I wonder if I can." My neighbor happened to be around once when I said this, and he said, "Oh, you can do it." Just that simple expression gave me the positive attitude I needed to do it. So I did.