What if we were creative?
Creativity! Originality! Ground-breaking! Such positive words. Most of us would love to be more creative and therefore more successful: with new ideas, that move our understanding forward in some way. This of course would impact so powerfully on our life itself. 46
An excellent strategy to provoke such creative and original thinking is to ask “what if. . .?” We could call this a “king” among thought-provoking strategies. 24
This what if strategy is well-known and used in all kinds of situation. For example, it is frequently used in life-coaching: “O.K. I know you can’t do this. But WHAT IF you could? What would happen?” 35
What if it were possible?
“Impossible” is a word that needs to be banished from our vocabulary. Human history bears witness to the fact that millions of successful developments, at first considered impossible, have started with that simple question, WHAT IF? Yes! They were possible after all!
The more we already know, the better. The more expert someone is in a particular field of knowledge, the more likely they are to come up with useful and creative developments. They already know what has been tried before, what works and what doesn’t work. They can then focus on truly original ideas:
“That’s a good idea – we’ve never tried that before – let’s give it a go, and see what happens.”
What if we opened up our mind?
“What if, brainstorming” sessions always insist on faithfully collecting every idea, no matter how stupid it seems at first. All premature judgement is outlawed!
Just WAIT! DON’T JUDGE! DON’T REJECT! Wait until all the ideas are in, and only then ask – how could this idea actually work? That’s how breakthroughs often originate.
Nothing’s written in stone! Obviously we can think of many things that really are impossible in the intellectual world of ideas, logic, mathematics, etc. But even a brief glance at the astounding progress made in last century, for example, should convince us that virtually nothing is impossible in the real, empirical world.
What if we had a small team?
“Two heads are better than one.” One plus one can equal three – the sum total of group thinking is often much greater than individual thinking alone. We spark off a process, fire one another up, and new and creative ideas start to emerge.
All we need to do is suspend judgement, open up our mind, and accept that “received wisdom” is always time-bound. Yesterday’s wisdom is today’s outdated history. Update or die.
What if we applied this to all dimensions of our life?
What if I did something special for my wife today? What if I discovered a new passion? What if I changed my job? What if I moved to another country? What if I made more money? What if I went into politics? What if I got involved in a Charitable Organization, helping some needy people?What if I joined a new group, took up a new hobby, wrote a book, got fit, lost weight, changed my eating . . . etc?
As you can see, this what if strategy can be applied to the whole of life. However, a word of caution! Just don’t go mad, go too quick, and drive all the family and friends mad as well!
What if you started today?
What . . . today? Why not? Nothing to worry about. It’s one thing to come up with creative new ideas. However you don’t have to try to do everything yesterday! Just give it a go. Take all the time you really need, and see where it takes you.
Good luck!
Gerry McCann
