I wouldn’t be surprised if you rolled your eyes every time that someone told you to “think outside the box” as an entrepreneur. Even whilst writing this, I’m cringing a little at the thought. This is because saying; “think outside of the box!” doesn’t really mean much anymore. It’s passed off as an easy way of saying “be creative”, “challenge your perceptions” or “get out of your own head”, but without knowing how to do this, you become stuck, and the phrase becomes an annoying buzz word for something you don’t really know how to do. Besides, you have a business to run, so there is limited time and opportunity to really spend time to really getting to grips with clawing out of your box – right?
Maybe not – Anna Vital has created a fab info-graphic of different ways to challenge yourself, (which you can see below). And yes, sometimes means climbing out, jumping over the edge and creating a completely new way of thinking, but if it’s good for your business then isn’t it worth the time spent? By actively pushing yourself to try new things, challenging your way of thinking and being curious about life you can achieve the “out-of-the-box” thinking that business leaders seem to love.
Image Source: Anna Vital
Here are our top 3 tips (in addition to Anna Vital’s) of how you could achieve this:
Try an activity or class for something that is outside of your comfort zone. Pushing yourself into new experiences, especially something you never expected to do boosts the problem solving, pattern recognition and creative thinking parts of the brain. Plus you get the confidence boost from trying something new!
Leave time for play. Regardless of if it’s baking, colouring or running around an aquarium pretending to be a fish (or just visiting), taking time to play and have fun (however silly it may seem) is great for clearing your mind and really boosts inspiration and creative thinking.
Learn, learn and learn some more. Learn about things completely unrelated to what you are doing, learn about things you find interesting, and explore your curiosities. These are the things that will make you happy and even unrelated subjects can boost connections in your brain and really help you to explore your problem solving skills.
What do you find boosts your inspiration and creative thinking? Any classes we should try?
