These are the unique thinkers among us who are the innovators of life and industry. They are a step ahead of the trending curve, the general public, their peers and competition. This gift of foresight however, is something that’s difficult to gauge in individuals.
As with anything when it comes to competence, our own self-belief will rarely align with the opinions of others.
This is primarily because we generally think we’re actually more creative, more smarter than we actually are. It then rarely amounts to anything once we need to rely on the thoughts of others.
For instance, those who are “critics” will constantly disagree regarding the aesthetics of a certain movie or a painting.
Even if they ever do agree on something, they’ll rarely digress towards conventional mainstream thinking.
The Reward For Unconventional Thinking
When it comes to education, traditionally, students are often rewarded once they outperform what’s expected of them and excels, provided it’s still within the framework.
The top elite Universities will routinely reward their students, for displaying unconventional methods of thinking. To be unique.
In the business world, there are a select few organizations who will tolerate brilliance, experimentation, or intuitive decision making from their staff.
The reason being it can be a time waster and potentially burn into company profits, or doing so might interfere with their mission statement.
Although most companies will claim they are innovative, the majority of the employees are paid to be predictable, and asked to just do their job.
It’s the typical “do what you’re paid for” to earn your paycheck syndrome, which minimizes risk and ego.
One paradox which underlies the fate of the majority of businesses, is that innovation generally leads to growth. But growth usually hinders any type of innovation.
Are You An Innovator And Think Out Of The Box
How do you yourself know if you are innovative. While we all have the ability and the potential to be creative, some are likely to go beyond the threshold and be more innovative than others.
This depends on your attitude, your personality, and the values which the corporate, or educational bodies considers the norm.
Research has been applied to this area, when it comes to the correlation of individual differences, when it comes to innovation.
There are a few distinct reveals which indicates the potential of someone being innovative. Realize if they apply to you.
5 Signs You Are Innovative
1.) – The Ability To Multi-Task
It’s generally regarded the human brain is actually not able to multi-task, or do so efficiently.
Recent tests however has shown those who are extremely creative, tends to show higher levels of increased memory retention when it comes to short-term activities.
This includes exercises such as being able to remember an 8 digit number, or remembering a specific address for a few moments.
It comes down to how many pieces of information your brain is able to handle at one time.
This increased memory capacity and retention generally correlates with a higher IQ, so the more data you’re able to store and recall short term, the more innovative you are.
2.) – You Get Lost In Whatever You’re Doing
You lose complete sense of time and space with a sane sober mind. This is what the experts refer to as “flow,” which is associated with creativity.
If you’re capable of focusing and concentrating at extremely high levels for an extended time, then you should be experiencing intrusive thoughts.
What’s important is you need to find tasks or projects which are meaningful and of interest to you.
The reason for this is it’s thought highly innovative people, will always find a way to follow their passions, whether during their leisure time or at work.
3.) – Are You A Morning Person Or A Night Owl
Research has shown those when in their adolescence years, who prefers to work or stay up late at night, are associated with increased levels of sensation seeking.
What their brain churns is having more of an interest in extremely complex or unusual ideas.
Once they develop into adults, what they’ll usually begin displaying are flashes of brilliance, creativity and innovation.
If you enjoy working or staying up late into the night, then you most likely have higher creative potential.
4.) – Are You An Original Thinker
It’s found there’s a direct link, a correlation between individuals who aren’t able to suppress bizarre “out of the box” ideas, may have creative potential.
This makes sense since someone who’s creative, is capable of pulling original abstract wacky ideas out of their brain.
What needs to be discerned however, is which one of these unusual thoughts have any potential to be relevant, or of interest to others. That’s when these thoughts can become innovative.
So treasure and keep notes on all of your unusual ideas, since some of them might eventually develop into creative insights and profit.
On the other, if your mind doesn’t have these wacky ideas going through your head, you might be lacking the raw skills and material makeup which contributes to innovative thinking.
5.) – You Don’t Like To Follow The Norm
It’s found those who are constantly and passionately opposed to authority, conspire, while continuously questioning the status-quo are generally considered innovative.
The reason being, they have an increased incentive of doing things differently.
If you’re easily satisfied with how things are, while never bother doing things differently, or raise questions, then you’re most likely not innovative.
What conformity inhibits is creativity, while nonconformity will always promote it.
If you need to moderate yourself from going against the grain, not wanting to do things differently, doing so can be counterproductive. This isn’t however considered innovative.