Page 254 - THE DO-IT-YOURSELF LOBOTOMY Open Your Mind to Greater Creative Thinking

Appendix 245

If your answer is never, congratulations. Based on your answer in
this area, it appears you are entirely uninhibited when it comes to men-
tioning new ideas to others. This will serve you well in areas of creative
pursuit. You are likely a very open, creative individual who knows that
not all new ideas sound brilliant, and you are willing to take the chance
of appearing silly or wrong. Either that, or you work in a very sup-
portive, open-minded environment.

Question D: Do you ever have the tendency to stop at your first
good idea?
Good is the enemy of great.
∼Voltaire

It’s quite natural for people to stop at their first good idea. But
when you do this early on in the creative process you are limiting the
possibility of an even better idea materializing. One way to discourage
stopping at your first good idea is to work quickly during the early
ideation phase and simply keep judgment out of the process. If you
don’t judge, you don’t know what’s good or bad, so you don’t become
attached to the “good,” stop ideating, and prevent yourself from find-
ing something even better.
If your answer is almost always or often, this is a problem area for you
since you tend to stop at your first good idea much too often. You need
to change your habits in this area; otherwise, you’re likely just putting
all of your effort into executing mediocre ideas.
If your answer is occasionally or rarely, you tend to stop at your first
good idea a bit more often than you should. Remember, when you do
this early on in the creative process you are preventing the possibility
of an even better idea being born.
If your answer is never, it appears you are not prone to stopping at
your first good idea, as are most people. Keep it up!

Question E: How many ideas do you tend to generate—good or
bad—when tackling a project?
I have lots of ideas.
∼Linus Pauling, two-time Nobel laureate
(when asked to explain why he had such great ideas)

Yes, when you brainstorm you’re usually looking for the idea. But a
big part of creativity is simply a numbers game. Generate more ideas