Are you looking to be the best critical thinker you can be? Then you need to be like Da Vinci and focus on continuous learning. Let me elaborate.
Thought-provoking thinker.
There are three classes of people: those who see, those who see when shown, and those that do not see.
– Leonardo Da Vinci
No doubt. I am a big fan of great thinkers. My top thinker of all time? It has to be Da Vinci. Why do you ask? For his abilities in learning and creativity, without a doubt. A mathematician. A scientist. An engineer. An anatomist. A creative learner. Always learning and creating.
Do you see? Maybe some of the lessons from Da Vinci will help. So what would be the lessons in critical thinking, learning, and creativity derived from Da Vinci? Here are the ones I continually come back to:
Sketching and note-taking
Over his lifetime Da Vinci created 13,000 pages of sketches and notes. 13,000 pages. By hand, on individual sheets of paper. A sketch in the center, simple and done quickly, the label on top, annotations along the sides, arrows pointing to key content. Sometimes a summary on the bottom.
Alone in the first few iterations divergent thinking. Time to generate lots of ideas, and to reflect. Incubate ideas. Ask himself lots of questions. Always observing and studying. Think about the age of Da Vinci … no computers, few books, and few experts in fields of his interests. Just his ability to see and observe using notes to record for further study.
Da Vinci often reviewed his work with respected peers after he had finished incubating his ideas. It was an opportunity to refine his ideas. Time to collaborate. He was way ahead of his time on most topics, so many of his good ideas were rejected.
He didn’t lose his desire or his persistence by the rejections. But remember … 13,000 sketches led to at least three masterpieces. Persistence is a key, isn’t it? Perhaps this is the most important reason we have less creative people.
Build on others
One of the misunderstandings around creativity and imagination is that you have to be utterly original to do it. The truth is all creative people stand on the shoulders of those who came before. Writers learn to write by reading; painting students are sent to museums to copy the masters, while great chefs learn the already tested basics of cooking to create some new dishes.
Innovation stands on a platform that already exists. Yes, inspiration is involved, those flashes of insight, the ah…ha moments. You start with something that already exists and takes it to another level. So relax. Let go of thinking you have to do something original. Take the pressure off. Celebrate that there is all this help available.
Best critical thinker … question everything
Want to think what nobody has ever thought? Start by questioning all assumptions.
There comes a moment in time where everyone agrees with everybody about pretty much everything. For any sized organization that is focused on creating a culture of relentless innovation, hardened dogma is an innovation obstacle they must overcome.
And that starts best with questioning everything, assumptions included.
Pay attention to patterns
Treat patterns as part of the problem. Recognizing a new pattern is very useful, but be careful not to become part of it.
Best critical thinker … observe with all senses
Truly creative people have developed their ability to observe and to use all of their senses, which can get dull over time. Take time to “sharpen the blade” and take everything in. Add thoughts as you go like Seth Godin often does.
Continuous learning
Both creativity and innovation are based on knowledge. Therefore, you need to continually expand your knowledge base. Read things you don’t normally read as often as you can.
Defer judgment
Your perceptions may limit your reasoning. Be careful about how you perceive things. In other words, defer judgment. Let it all hang out.
Da Vinci’s basis for the study was simple observation and notes/questions on his observations. He withheld judgments, either positive or negative, for as long as possible. Particularly his own. He appreciated that judgment would be a block to creativity and new ideas.
Experience as much as you can. Exposure puts more ideas into your subconscious. Actively seek out new and very different experiences to broaden your idea thinking experience portfolio.
Always carry a book
When waiting: read. It’s not only about reading per se, but it’s also about focus and self-discipline. You need both to get smarter. How can you solve a problem if you can’t focus? And how would you solve it if you fail to commit yourself to the task?
Now, I am talking about reading per se. It improves your verbal-linguistic abilities, creativity, memory, open-mindedness, etc.
Critical Thinker.
Meditate
Again, it’s about focus and self-discipline. It also improves introspective and self-reflective capacities (intrapersonal skills). (How?)
Critical thinker … leave your comfort zone
Take risks. Here is how. Failing is very important in the process of learning.
Do a bit of math every day
Improving your logical-mathematical skills is critical for almost every area of your life.
Always challenge your ideas and points of view
It is a critical thinking and open-mindedness booster.
Stimulate imagination
Da Vinci used divergent thinking to create lots of ideas. Lots of ideas, questions, and curiosity to stimulate his imagination. He minimized the limitations and constraints when using his imagination to think of the solution space to his many questions.
Socialize frequently
Meet people you like and new people as often as possible. Try to have a lot of friends and to create new friendships (care both about quality and quantity). It’s very important for your brain. It improves your emotional intelligence and boosts your social skills. (Related TED video)
Always look for self-improvement
We are never going to be perfect, and this is great so that we always have something to improve. No time to get bored! It makes you smarter because you will know more about yourself.
Save and revisit later
Most of Da Vinci’s sketches were done on individual sheets of paper. Not in a constrained notebook. He understood the value of multiple revisits and connecting, reconnecting, and grouping related facts and observations. An analogy expert. And an uncanny ability to connect several different observations and ideas to create new ideas.
You have to understand when your emotions are getting over your rational thinking. It improves introspective and self-reflective capacities (intrapersonal skills).
Curiosity and questions
Perhaps Da Vinci’s greatest asset was his insatiable curiosity. The more observations and connections of ideas, the more questions, and curiosity. And creative ideas.
Get in touch with art
Painting, literature, sculpture, architecture, cinema, theater, dance, poetry, photography, and so on… It is fun, interesting, fascinating, and makes you smart (expand your problem-solving skills, open-mindedness, etc…). What else?
Engage smarter people
Befriend and engage in conversations with people who are smarter than you. You can expand your knowledge base and vocabulary by simply being around intelligent individuals.
Be open-minded
Being smart involves being open to different viewpoints even if they contradict your own. Be open to learning about viewpoints and concepts that you disagree with so that you become a more well-rounded individual.
Critical thinking process.
Be proactive
Don’t simply rely on watching the news or your professors at school to boost memory, learning ability, focus, concentration, and comprehension.
Visualize your ideal outcome
For example, can you imagine being smarter?The smartest people in the world visualize what they want before it comes into existence. They visualize what they need to do to make it happen. They visualize the steps they took. They visualize the obstacles they faced. So you need to learn to visualize your ideal outcome.
The bottom line
Do you see? Very, very few of Da Vinci’s abilities are in the populace. But that doesn’t mean you can’t learn to be creative … it can be learned. Can you use these lessons to learn to see or see better? Give it a try. Practice and be persistent. Stick with it, and over the long haul, you will see some good dividends.
Need some help in improving the creativity of you and your staff? Creative ideas to help the differentiation with your toughest competitors?
Call today for a FREE consultation or a FREE quote for a workshop on creativity. Learn about some options for creativity workshops to get noticeable results.
Call Mike at 607-725-8240.
All you get is what you bring to the fight. And that fight gets better every day you learn and apply new creative ideas.
When things are not what you want them to be, what’s most important is your next step.
Try. Learn. Improve. Repeat.
Are you devoting enough energy to improving your creativity, innovation, and ideas?
Do you have a lesson about making your creativity better you can share with this community? Have any questions or comments to add in the section below?
Mike Schoultz is a digital marketing and customer service expert. With 48 years of business experience, he consults on and writes about topics to help improve the performance of small business. Find him on G+, Facebook, Twitter, Digital Spark Marketing, and LinkedIn.
Every situation in our life calls for our critical thinking skills. It may be an unfortunate event when our car has somehow broken in traffic. Or when we must choose between studying Psychology or taking a gap year. Anyway, our skills are put to the test to shape critical thinking.
We must carefully analyze all the possibilities and we often must do this in a limited amount of time. We must evaluate all the evidence-based on facts and unbiased analyses.
Some of the situations we encounter call for our skeptical and rational thinking. We must make judgments based on factual evidence.
Critical thinking is not something you are born with, nor is developing
by itself. There are some qualities all critical-thinkers have that helped them
develop and improve this skill.
Let’s see which the eight qualities great critical thinkers have and how
they helped them develop and improve this skill.
Carefully analyzing all the evidence and making presumptions based on
facts might seem like an easy thing to do. But we often find ourselves in
situations where our objectivity is put to test.
It is important to be committed to always supporting our opinions with
reasons. With reasons that are evidence-based and well analyzed. It is a
commitment self-directed, a commitment you make to yourself to use rational
reasons to support your beliefs.
Also, it is useful to be committed to learning new things, to set goals, and to accomplish them. This kind of commitment you make to yourself will allow you to become a learning machine, and this way, to learn something new every week.
We will often find ourselves in a debate. It may be a debate with some
friends or with your manager. No matter what, you need to critically analyze
the situation and the evidence. There will be many possibilities, but, of
course, some are better than others.
A critical thinker is an open-minded person. Because he or she understands
that we are all humans and we all have different perspectives. You can
understand different cultures and traditions, as well as why people behave the
way they do.
This also means that you are receptive to new ideas, even if they are
different from yours. Thinking critically does not mean that you must stick to
your opinion especially if you now have evidence that it is not factually
based.
Thinking critically implies a new perspective and your opening to it.
The assumption that you do not know everything and that you can learn something
from every person you encounter is the key to open-mindedness.
Of course, although some problems require simple solutions, there are a
lot of problems which can be solved only by finding a creative solution.
Thinking critically means that you must analyze carefully the situation and find innovative solutions. You will often find yourself in a situation where the situation will ask you to be creative. Because all the business and marketing strategies rely heavily on creativity.
Curiosity as a trait is represented by the natural and inborn or developed willingness to be in a constant process of learning. You want to learn new things about stars, the economy, or history. The fact is that you improve your critical thinking skills because you are in a constant process of absorbing new information.
Later, you can put all this information into good use and find solutions
to problems or come up with new ideas, based on what you have learned
previously.
Also, some problems will require more research. So, if you are a curious
person it will come in handy to do some research and find new perspectives. You
can always use custom
essay tools to
help you proofread or edit your assignments or the brief descriptions of your
ideas.
Objectivity
This is one of the most important traits critical thinkers can have. You
need to see the problem based on the facts and evidence, and not on your
emotions. You must make judgments and to focus on evaluating scientifically all
the evidence.
However, one cannot be completely objective. After all, we are all humans and we are prone to mistakes and wrong judgments. But becoming aware of your cognitive biases and documenting them will surely help you increase your level of objectivity.
Of course, objectivity comes with a lot of exercise and guidance. You
may find yourself in a situation where you cannot critically analyze and
correct your assignments.
Now, this may seem like wrong or undesirable quality a critical thinker might have. After all, you must always take into consideration facts, data, and evidence to form a rational and unbiased judgment. You may think that there is no place for emotions, compassion, or empathy.
You should keep in mind that, after all, we are all humans. And while
you base your decisions or analysis on facts, you must take into consideration
other aspects.
Not everything is based only on cold data, but also on the human
element. You must be in a constant search for the best decision, taking
into consideration the welfare of humans and the facts available.
We live in an era where most of us listen only to reply, not to understand. Active listening along with open-mindedness allows you to analyze contrary opinions. You analyze and at the same time, you open yourself to ideas that contradict your opinions.
Active listening is a skill one must learn to shape his or her critical
thinking skills. Active listening also pushes you further into the
conversation, excluding the possibility of remaining passive or uninvolved.
And so, you are exposed to different perspectives, different points of
view that only broaden your horizon and improve your critical thinking skills.
Shape critical thinking …Willingness
Willingness to learn new things, to hear and analyze other perspectives, or to develop yourself is a key trait for critical thinkers. This willingness can determine you to strive for the best, to try and excel, and to learn from your own mistakes.
This willingness to learn and to adapt to new challenges will make you become more flexible. You will be eager to find out what others think, to debate with them, and to find the best solution to the most complicated problem.
The bottom line
Critical thinking is something innate, but at the same time something you need to constantly improve. Every day we face challenges and situations we have never encountered.
We must approach them with calm, flexibility, and willingness to learn from them.
Every day we meet people we agree or disagree with. Being an active
listener and an empathetic and objective one will allow you to develop and
improve your critical thinking skills.
By being open to other ideas, cultures, and beliefs, you will shape your way of approaching difficult tasks.
Make no mistake. To change fundamental behaviors you have to change fundamental beliefs. Even if the goals of an initiative are highly technical, to transform an organization you first need to transform the people in it.
The truth is that any transformation isn’t an endpoint, but a journey. To succeed, you have to be in it for the long haul.
Critical thinking is a skill you can develop and improve. This is
possible only by being aware of your cognitive biases and keeping them under
control.
To master critical thinking skills, you must be in a constant search for information. You must apply standards and analyze the information with a grain of skepticism.
Remember that not everything that flies can be eaten. Base your
judgments and opinions on facts and rational and unbiased analysis.
Determining the relevance and being always curious about going further and further will make you master this amazing and helpful skill of critical thinking.
When things are not what you want them to be, what’s most important is your next step.
Test. Learn. Improve. Repeat.
Are you devoting enough energy to improving your continuous learning for yourself and your team?
Mike Schoultz is the founder of Digital Spark Marketing, a digital marketing and customer service agency. With 40 years of business experience, he blogs on topics that relate to improving the performance of your business. Find them on Twitter, and LinkedIn.
Digital Spark Marketing will stretch your thinking and your ability to adapt to change. We also provide some fun and inspiration along the way.
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