The Surprising Link Between Creativity and Problem-Solving You Can’t Ignore

Our Current State of Busyness

So many of us want to live 100 years when we don’t know what to do with a boring Sunday afternoon.

As parents, we feel like our ultimate goal is to ensure our children are not bored at any cost. Believe it or not, boredom is important and it’s OK for our children to be bored. Let them find their own stimulation. Let’s face it, real life is not naturally stimulating. In fact, its nothing but long stretches of boring loneliness. Along with bursts of temporary excitement in groups of 2 people or more. The sooner our children learn this, the better.

Also, in juxtaposition, our day-to-day, monotonous lives pale in comparison to our online lives which are very unpredictable and exciting with plenty of likes and comments. That’s why so many of us are struggling “to find meaning in our boring lives” especially since 2011. And that’s the year, the world saw the massive intrusion of social media and its excitement in our lives. Such is our modern life where taking some downtime is mistaken for laziness and lack of motivation.

What is Creativity

Creativity is seeing someone else’s vision through their mind’s eye. One of the top skills companies want is the ability to look at old problems and find novel ways to solve them. After all, creativity and innovation form the framework of our future.

Creativity involves being open to possibilities and finding patterns and connections between things where none are readily obvious. Creative people are open minded and adaptable to sudden changes in environment and culture.

That’s one reason why Creativity and Leadership are strongly connected. We’re able to take our team through difficulties and challenges, once we’re creative with our solutions.

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Middle Schooler Art Work

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Boost Creativity Through Boredom

Whether they grab a book and fall into the couch, or grab their headphones and go for a run – what children do with their time is upto them. But its our duty to tell them that a little downtime once in a while will reset the brain to think, create and connect more efficiently. During downtime, the brain goes into problem solving mode. It focuses on solving novel problems or creating a unique idea or product that the world didn’t know it was missing.

So, try something new in life. Pick up a new skill, try a new recipe or learn to dance. Mental agility that’s aided with novelty and calculated risks set us on a path of growth and learning for a lifetime.

Create opportunities where they can have brain breaks like taking a walk, or meditation. Such brain breaks give our brain a chance to shift its focus away to something low-stakes and fun for a few minutes. They are also shown to boost productivity and creativity once we return to our learning tasks.

Art, Cognitive Flexibility and Hope for the Future

Of all the techniques we can use to train our children into becoming better at problem solving, art plays an important part. Our world is filled with unpredictable reactions of our loved ones and strangers and a lot of uncertainty of our own wellbeing. But what can bring us to the present and help rid us of fear and anxiety is the Arts.

Cognitive flexibility, the ability to break out of regimented thinking, can help children in understanding abstract concepts and bring them to life through their own interpretation. That same mental agility later in life can enable them to become efficient problem solvers through creative and innovative solutions. An agile mind helps them to become resilient and adaptable to any situation life puts them into.

What’s more? Imagine their brain trapezing through what you hear and perceive to bringing into a form through a painting or a drawing. Through the meditation of the moment that any sort of creative work brings, we can welcome awareness, gratitude and purpose to our lives. We can learn our true nature and the infinite possibilities it offers. We can paint our own life and our own vision for how we want to lead it. We can use inspiration or imagination to super charge that creative side of ours!

Embrace creativity and chaos, because the opposite is normal, common and already known. Isn’t that boring? Have you taken up the brush yet??

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Middle Schooler Art Work

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Skills You Will Need To Become A Great Problem Solver