Think back to when you were in primary school. We have all been told to "use your imagination, be creative - oh green skin, I love it!" At what stage did we become afraid to stretch the boundaries? To say an idea that we didn't think would work in reality?
As we grow up we start to use the left hemisphere of our brain more and more to form logic rather than look at the world in a visual way.
So in this age of creative industries, how do we train ourselves to embrace our creative thinking, to stop thinking analytically and start thinking of the big picture?
I think it comes down to these three key things. Which, aren't necessarily solely related to being creative, but more so training yourself into a way of learning and thinking in different ways.
Fail
The official definition of fail is to be unsuccessful in achieving one's goal. To make a mistake, failure, or instance of poor performance. When you think of applying creative thinking - if an idea doesn't work the way you planned, have you been unsuccessful in achieving your goal, or, have you learnt a new way that it can't be done? Don't be afraid to fail, use it as a learning curve.
Collaboration
We are surrounded by the best resource we could ever hope for - our peers. In the internet generation, we all know how to find information online in a heart beat. This means that wanting to keep our creative ideas a secret from even those closest to us, is an idea of the past. If you really think about it, our minds work in very different ways so even if people do try to recreate your idea, it will be different to yours. The thing we need to focus more of our efforts on is rather than being afraid that someone will steal our idea, we should be afraid that no one will care about it. The road to success is built on feedback from your network of people. Run the idea past people you know - you never know, it might help make your idea better!
Passion
And the last, but most important element is passion. If you aren't passionate about something, there's no way you can be creative. Developing an idea will come much easier if you care about an idea/product/issue, rather than focusing solely on creating a final output.
And the last overarching point for all of these points is to have fun. Enjoy the experience. Test your boundaries. And ultimately, think outside the norm.