Metacognition and Creativity

How often do you spend reflecting?  How often do you spend reflecting on specifically how and why you do things the way you do?  Megacognition is defined as cognition about cognition, or knowing about knowing.  It's a concept that I think is very important in terms of creativity and improving it.  Whilst there are activities you can do to improve your creative thinking.  If you really want to improve you need to move up a level.

Getting above a certain level of creativity is a personal jouney.  Everyone is going to be different in terms of exactly what they want to achieve and what is going to work best in attaining that.

Here are some things to think about:

• If you woke up tomorrow and you had become highly creative, how would you know?
• What are your strengths?  Weaknesses?
• Think about when you've had really creative ideas.  What mood were you in?  Where were you?  What time of day was it?  What had you been doing? etc
• What really interests you and can you use that to your advantage?
• In what areas specifically would you like to apply your creativity?  What else branches off from this?
• Who do you associate with high creativity in this area and where do they find inspiration?
• What areas are you most creative in at the moment?
• What activities could best fuel your creativity?  Which will be the most fun and engaging for you?
• What are your values?  Do they align with your goal of higher creativity?  How strict are you with those values?
• How much are you influenced by what others think?
• Where do you currently find inspiration and where could you find more inspiration?
• What defines a really creative idea to you?

It may help if you keep a journal to help organise your thoughts.

Take time with this and realise that it may take you a while and several versions until you find the most effective answers.  Make sure you act upon those ideas though.  Regardless of whether your current ideas are right or wrong, action followed by reflection and calibration is your best way forward.

You're on your way to becoming a Highly Creative Person.