Moment to Moment

I attended a course last week titled “Re-awakening our creative minds”. It was a 3-day course and I learned a lot from the course and enjoyed myself.

The main objectives of the course are for us to acknowledge that the seed of creativity is in everyone, helps us to grasps and overcomes personal blockages to creative thinking, how to apply creative thinking to generate new ideas and solutions at the workplace and in our daily lives and, the course helps us to enhance our thinking skills and develops our flexibility in approaching a problem.

On the first day of the course, slightly before lunch, the course instructor asked us to paint each other’s face using face paint. We innocently drew on our partner’s face and after we were done, the course instructor told us to go to lunch and not wash our faces! We were surprised and were reluctant to go out for lunch but we had to and it was a great experience for us all. Only 8 of us were brave enough to go for lunch at a crowded food centre and people looked at us probably asking among each other what we were up to. There were stares; whispers and one of my course mates even heard one lady said we were crazy.

An old lady at one of the food stalls asked me what we were up to, a man at the drink stall looked twice at me when he was pouring tea, another stall owner approached our table and asked what game we were playing. I noticed that the older people have the courage to ask us and whereas the younger generations rather speculate among themselves. This experience has taught me to overcome my fear of embarrassment and also to believe in myself and not to worry so much what people going to think of my actions.

During the course, we were shown a video titled “ Everyday Creativity” featuring Dewitt Jones, a National Geographic photographer. Points learned from the video:

• Creativity is a moment where we look at the ordinary and see the extraordinary
• Creativity feels like falling in love with the world
• Try to add value to what we do
• Re-frame problem into opportunity
• Don’t be afraid to make mistakes – keep finding the right answer and don’t just stop at the first right answer, find the second right answer and third right answer.
• Look at things at different perspective to find creative solution
• How do we make use of creativity to make our lives extraordinary?
• Have the right mindset for creativity
• Learn the right techniques and train ourselves.
• Break the pattern.
• Take challenges positively and,
• Have the PASSION and VISION.
  

After 3 days of the course, do I feel my creativity seeping out of my mind? Guess, have to wait and find out :)