The human brain is amazing. We each have approximately 100 billion brain cells, or ‘neurons’ and those neurons interact with each other through synapses. Synapses are what create our thoughts. The potential exists for over one quadrillion connections between neurons in a typical brain which means we have an almost infinite ability for thoughts and ideas.
The average person has about 40,000 thoughts a day. And many of those thoughts are limiting. ‘No’ is one of the first words that young children learn, and that type of thought limitation carries over into adult life. Examples are; ‘don’t put your hand on a hot stove’, don’t exceed the speed limit’, ‘don’t be late for the meeting’, and ‘be careful what you say’. Many of these thoughts are actually good because they help us stay safe and can help us be successful. They do, however, confine our thinking.
For people with a regular job or standard routine, most of their thoughts will be the same from one day to the next. For example, if you commute the same way to work everyday, work in the same building and sit in the same office space, your thought patterns will tend to be repetitive. Having predictability in our lives can provide stability and even comfort. Many people thrive with a regular routine and prefer that to an existence of frequent change.
When you couple the similarity of our daily thoughts with the above mentioned thought limitations, the potential for original thought can be significantly diminished. This is not always a problem, because we can utilize our normal thought patterns to deal with many of the issues or problems we face. In other words, when we identify a problem that we have solved before, we can simply reach into the array of standard thoughts for solutions we know have worked previously. Everyone solves problems every day. You may not think much about cleaning up a spill, correcting a typing mistake, or re-scheduling an appointment, but these are simple problems that we deal with using our pool of known solutions. When a common problem surfaces, we handle it easily. Some of these are mundane (and that is exactly my point about having the same thoughts every day!) but the fact is, we KNOW how to fix them using standard thought patterns.
A problem arises, however, when we are confronted by a new or complex problem. Standard thought patterns may be ineffective in these situations. With a new problem that cannot be resolved using known solutions, innovation may be required. Since we are generally ‘wired’ for standard thought this can be quite a challenge. In these situations we need to approach things from another angle or think differently.
One of the easiest ways to encourage thinking differently is to ‘brainstorm’. Brainstorming involves generating as many ideas as possible without any judgment, and encourages building on others’ ideas. The wilder the ideas the better because even if they are not feasible, they open up additional avenues of thought. Most people believe they have brainstormed before, but over many years of facilitating such sessions, I’ve found that true brainstorming is rare. A combination of our naturally limiting thought processes and the discomfort of suggesting ideas that are crazy, impractical, or ‘have never been done before’ tends to inhibit people from brainstorming in its true sense. People want to be ‘right’ and in true brainstorming most of the ideas are complete throwaways. Most of us also feel judged by our ideas. This is especially true when brainstorming in a group. Whenever I facilitate a group trying to generate new ideas and brainstorming is not working I switch to a different thinking tool. I explain one of these in a article I wrote for SupportWorld magazine. It is posted elsewhere on this website.
The key to better solutions, or solutions to new problems, is to break out of our normal thought patterns. To do that, we basically have to give ourselves ‘permission’ to be uncomfortable and become a little adventurous in our thinking. Many of the world’s greatest inventions were developed by approaching problems from a totally new perspective. To learn about inventions that were created by thinking differently just type ‘great inventions’ into your favorite search engine. You may be amazed at how some of the most clever ideas – even some emerging in this decade – were conceptualized. Most of them happened because someone was thinking differently.