Box-less Thinking

Your Thoughts, Your Life – For Better Or Worse
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Whether you believe it or not you are a thinker. All human being are. Some think more than other and some think better than others, but we all think. Since everything we do is ultimately a decision based on out thinking, we are what we are because of the way we have thought about things up to now. And the best part is that all we can or will become will be the result of the thinking we do today going forward. It you want to get out of the box you find yourself in, you must change the way you think.

Creativity Is Only For Children
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I read about a report once that focused on a series of I.Q. tests given to children ages 2 – 4 years. Of these little children, 95% of them tested out as highly creative and they were indicated to have curious and questioning minds with the ability for abstract thinking.

The report went on to say that things had changed with these children by the time they were 7. The tests were administered again and found only 5% of these once highly creative children still demonstrated those same high levels of creativity. It seems that between their first testing and the second, these children had learned what we all learn and that is not to rock the boat. They learned how to conform to the norm.

Conformity Can Be Dangerous
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We tell our older children all the time not to be like certain others in their class. We ask them questions like, “well, if Tommy jumped off a cliff, does that mean you have to jump off the cliff too?” We do this for their safety, but as can be seen from these children, the danger doesn’t end with the physical harm, the can also lose their creativity and the quality of their thinking will plummet. During the years between tests, these children had lost their wonderful spontaneity, had developed fears about being different or wrong, and had learned to keep their ideas and insights to themselves for fear that they were unusual or different.

Challenge Yourself To See New Ideas
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Fortunately, creativity is a birthright. It is something every human being has as part of their fundamental nature. Just think how imaginative and creative you have been when forced to come up with an excuse about why you were late, why you didn’t get you homework done, or why the house still hasn’t been cleaned. You need to convince yourself that you can draw on this creativity at any time, no matter how long it has been since you used it for good.

How Can I Put This To Use Today
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Start by thinking as if the thing you are trying to think of has already been thought of by someone else and they are in competition with you. If you can’t come up with the same or a better answer, you could be beat.

Now, think about ways of doing exactly the opposite of what you are currently doing. Let you mind play with these ideas. Then, let your mind consider how the trends of today will effect tomorrow. This should help you do some box-less thinking.

Copyright © 2006