Class Notes on Creative Thinking Skills
Being Flexible
Can you touch your toes? Does it matter? Maybe.
It depends on whether you want to move in any direction.
Being mentally flexible is about a capacity to consider variety in content. How easy is it to change your mental mind set?
Being flexible, as a Creative Thinking Skill, means an ability, an openness to be able to do things differently.
The world is weird
If the pandemic taught us anything, it is that life can radically change. Sure, change happens. But what if everything suddenly and irrevocably changes? The ability to switch approach opens us up to develop more insights, more possibilities and more ideas that are likely to produce more original thoughts and solutions.
The problem with ruts
To be “stuck in a rut” means to be so fixed in a pattern that it is hard to change. Wagon wheel ruts from the 1800s can still be seen in the United States from pioneer migration westward. What a great physical example, not only of history, but also of just how permanent ruts can be!
Why flexibility matters
Because we live in times of rapid change, ruts, both physical and mental, can block our doing and thinking. Think about it. If you only practice one type of exercise for example, how easy is it to start up a completely different exercise? Not so easy. Why? Because even muscles have memory and know patterns. Changing patterns takes time. The more flexible you are, both physically and mentally, the more able you are to move in any direction. And since the world clearly can pull us in unforeseen directions, being flexible matters as a 21st century skill.
Why practice matters more
Back to touching your toes. If you can do it today, can you do it tomorrow? What if you try a week later, can you still touch your toes? It’s probably going to be a bit harder. Practice makes permanent. In order to be flexible, (strong, fluent in foreign language, etc.) a daily or at least regular practice is key.
To become your best self
To have a creative mindset also requires a practice of thinking in different ways. Creative Thinking Skills were designed precisely as tools to enable a capacity for evaluating, filtering and developing thinking. Creativity is the highest order thinking skill we humans have. The more we practice at becoming creative in our thinking, the more creative we actually become!
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Wings of Change students show off their flexiblity
An exercise in how flexible thinking adds value.
“The most important factor in survival is neither intelligence nor strength but adaptability.”
– Charles Darwin
Sentence starters to practice being flexible
Tanya Knudsen teaches for Creativity at Wings of Change
Tanya Knudsen is a creative consultant, educator, polyglot and PhD candidate for creative leadership. Her quest is to ignite creative thinking, our super power and highest order thinking skill to maximize creative potential for everyone. This blogpost series is from Creativity Through English, a course Tanya teaches at Wings of Change in Nosy Be, Madagascar.
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