Ten Questions To Boost Your Creativity

You are capable of generating such brilliant creativity that you could solve most problems that you might otherwise ask an ‘expert’ to advise you about. You could invent something totally new – you could walk around your own house and see it as if for the first time and shine inspiring creativity into every corner, after all, this isn’t just about problem solving.

Recently I was leading an action learning set where one member was missing the advice of a mature and experienced spiritual director. He thought that if he had a good spiritual director then that might help solve his problems. I asked him what advice the perfect spiritual director would give him and after a pause he told the group. He already knew!

As a non directive life coach I do the same thing with my clients (people secretly prefer their own answers to their questions anyway). Often when I’m asked a direct question I will mirror that question back and 99 times out of 100 the client will really know the answer. Try this yourself when someone asks you for advice: answer back ‘what do you think’, they will say, ‘I don’t know’, you then say ‘what would the answer be if you did know’? You’ll be surprised at how many people already know.

Next time you face a creative challenge or a problem you don’t know how to solve, get it into a clear and concise question and ask yourself one or more of the following and brain storm the answers onto notepaper. Try and choose the most ridiculous.

1. What would wise you do?
2. What would the world’s expert do with this?
3. Think of a hero of yours, what would they do?
4. How would an estate agent solve this?
5. What would a retired millionaire do?
6. What would Jesus do?
7. What would a prostitute do?
8. How would a symphony conductor approach this?
9. How would you have approached this if you were five?
10. What would you do if nothing was impossible?

And now for your comments: