Doubt your way towards Creativity
How Creativity Springs from our Doubts about the World.
Doubt your way to New Boxes
Doubt has a negative connotation in our culture. From “Doubting Thomas” to quotes saying that, “Doubt is the brother of shame,” doubt is viewed as something to avoid. But if one wants to harness their creative abilities and identify unnoticed relationships in the world, they have to doubt their current understanding of the world.
In their book, Thinking in New Boxes: A Paradigm for Business Creativity, Luc de Brabandere and Alan Iny provide a road map of how to create a paradigm shift in our outlook of the world and establish new “boxes” from which to address problems. They argue that simply saying “think outside the box” is not sufficient in providing direction on how to think more creatively. One has to develop new tools and perspectives on addressing problems. And the first step in developing these new tools and perspectives is doubting the capabilities of our current ones.
Tap our Inner Child-Scientists
If your are looking for good examples of doubters, children are like mini-scientists that do not accept assumptions to explain the world around them. Many of us have witnessed toddlers banging different materials to hear the different sounds they make or touching and grasping things in order to experience the different sensations. We have also witnessed them test the limits of their parents’ sanity. Children will test and prod their assumptions of the world in order to understand their reality. Their search for facts through testing stems from doubting the accuracy of their assumptions. By doubting as children we can begin to discover new insights about our surroundings, which will spur our creativity.
Unfortunately, as we age so does our perception of the world. We begin to lose connection to our inner child-scientists and begin to view the world as comfortable teenagers.
Stop to Doubt you Inner Teenager
Believe it or not, our brain is an inherently lazy organ. In order to preserve energy, your brain will take the path of least resistance unless it is instructed otherwise. The brains of most adults are like a teenagers who have lawyers sitting next to them at all times. Just imagine asking a teenager to set the table while they are watching TV or playing a game. Chances are they will rush through the task just to get over with. That is how our brain works. Pose a question to an adult and their brain, like a teenager, will find an answer that takes the least amount of effort to get. And the worst part is that the brain’s inner lawyer will argue the validity of that answer. In order to overcome the brain’s natural apathy to work, you have to instill some doubt in your thinking process.
Doubt can be instilled by simply pausing and asking, “What if?” or “Why?”. This should be done when you are presented with a problem or when you are simply observing the world around you. Questions like, “Why would our company go bankrupt in 5 years?” or “What if we target a different demographic?” will help you question the validity of your assumptions. Doubting will help you fully engage your brain, which will help engender creative ideas. Ultimately you want to avoid falling into the trap of applying “comfortable” solutions to your problems.
Take Away
As you go through your daily lives, make sure you are engaging the curiosity of your inner child-scientist and not relying too much on your comfortable teenager.
Bonus
I have included some visual aids to help you begin doubting how your brain sees the world.
Here is an optical illusion in action.
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