Tough Times

Having the right perspective is one of the key reasons why successful people stay successful.  Life is like a roller coaster; you will surely have ups and downs.  Successful people survive and most of them actually bounce back and reach a higher level of success; they catapult to even greater success during tough times.

These successful men and women always have a positive perspective coupled with creativity as they deal with tough times. Because of this attitude and ability, they are able to overcome the difficulties they face. When facing the greatest challenges of life, we need to cultivate creative thinking. During tough times, you need to tap into every good idea you have. And of course, the best time to increase your creativity is before the crisis occurs. This can be done by establishing the discipline of creative thinking.

To develop creative thinking you need to:

1. Spend time with creative people. Spending time with creative people will enable you to rub into their creativeness. Spending time with creative people will influence your thinking.  It will also challenge you into doing or trying to do things the way they do it.  
   
2. Don’t complicate things. When there is a problem we tend to think “big”; trying hard to find the big solution sometimes hinders you from finding the best solution.  The best solution is sometimes the simplest solution.  So, when there is a problem, try to break it down into small problems so that you will be able to find small or simple solutions.
   
3. Being creative is being unreasonable (at times). Though logic and creativity can work well together there are times when rational thinking gets in the way of being creative. When this happens be willing to look at unreasonable ideas. Unreasonable ideas can expand your thinking and lead you to breakthroughs that you could have missed if you insist on always being logical.
   
4. Be flexible. Bureaucratic thinking is in direct opposition to innovation and creativity. To be creative, you need to make it a habit to consider every idea, no matter how difficult it might seem to implement or how much change it may require. Be flexible enough to go against the standards or the rules; be unconventional. Only when you embrace this attitude will you be creative enough to come up with innovations.
   
5. Dare to be different; dare to be wild. To be creative you must be willing to stand outside the norm. You must cultivate a willingness to challenge every rule and assumption. Creativeness has no rules. Be brave enough to travel the path not yet discovered.
   
6. A creative person sees only opportunities. When faced with a “problem”, a creative person steps back to study the issue on how to best describe the issue at hand as an opportunity.  For a creative person, this is the time to innovate, build, and improve. I remember my conversation with my Singaporean friend several years back.  I told him that I envy him leaving in an organized and orderly country.  His response made me think deeply of its truth.  He said that living in such a country takes away the opportunity to do great things. He said he will trade with someone from a third world country because that person has more opportunities to improve. What he meant is that we should not be sad when faced with issues as these are merely challenges and opportunities to be better.

The discipline of creative thinking will change you for the better. As jurist Oliver Wendell Holmes said, “The mind, once expanded to the dimensions of larger ideas, never returns to its original size.”