How to Become Creative?

By Sujendra Prakash

How to Become Creative?
This is a question that is haunting every budding writer, artist, musician, cook, designer, homemaker, and so many others.
All of us can create. Some know how to use it and some have not explored it.
Having trained hundreds of people in developing creativity, I find that people can solve many day-to-day problems using creativity.
This book deals with

• what exactly is creativity
• how does it benefit us
• how it is still a controversial topic
• how to nurture it and
• what comes in the way of using our creativity so that we can overcome those hindrances

You can find some very original ideas that can help you in summoning your creativity.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Sujendra Prakash
• Release date: Jan 1, 2022
• ISBN: 9798201934323

Sujendra Prakash

Professor Sujendra Prakash holds a Ph.D. degree in Psychology from Bangalore University. During his extensive professional career, he has held senior academic positions in several colleges. He has taught graduate and post-graduate students in various subjects of psychology. Dr. Prakash is a professional member of the Indian Academy of Applied Psychology, Chennai; Indian Society for Training and Development, New Delhi; Associate life member of Karnataka Association of Clinical Psychologists; and was an affiliate of Consulting Psychology Division of the American Psychological Association during 1999-2001. He has published and presented several papers and he has been interviewed on burning issues in Times of India, Bangalore, and other newspapers. He has also been interviewed on several TV and radio channels. He was invited to be a celebrity on Indiatimes.com in 2002. He has counseled and helped thousands of people in developing memory, concentration, study skills, personality development, etc. He has several corporate and institutional clients.

Book preview

Is Creativity just Imagination?

Creativity is a mental faculty that involves creative thinking, creative decision-making, and creative problem-solving. They are so interspersed in real life that only for studying and understanding do we classify them separately.

As imagination is also involved in fantasy and daydreaming, attributing imagination to creativity is rather naïve. Instead of saying that creativity comprises imagination, it is better to say that it includes abstract thinking. Abstract thinking is more systematic than imagination and uses ideas and concepts in a structured manner.

Creativity is required only when there is a problem to solve or when something needs to be produced anew. Without these objectives, it just becomes an act of imagination, fantasy, or daydreaming.

Graphical Representation of Creativity

The steps present in creativity are depicted graphically in the following diagram. Abstract thinking forms the basis of divergent thinking, parallel processing, and convergent thinking leading to creativity.

Let us clarify this with an example.

A painter collates ideas as there is a need for producing new art on a fresco. S/he starts with divergent thinking trying to fathom all kinds of possibilities for the shape to take a form.

S/HE THEN USES PARALLEL processing to see the possibilities of each line of ideas generated through divergent thinking. After considering several permutations and combinations, s/he decides to adopt one particular combination of color, shape, design,