Consider the definition of creativity: the ability to transcend traditional ideas, rules, patterns, relationships, or the like, and to create meaningful new ideas, forms, methods and interpretations. Creativity is often linked with art and music but this transcendental act applies to every aspect of human growth and development. The act of being creative is what leads to innovation, new ideas and progress.

The more creative we are the better our chances become at finding new and effective solutions to problems and questions. Brain creativity is the practice of taking the skills you already know and applying new information and ideas to broaden your thinking.

Creativity sounds like a great idea but how do we go about unlocking our brain’s creative potential? Studies indicate the average human uses only 10% of their brain’s potential. If this is true then humans haven’t even scratched the surface of the mind’s capabilities. Hacking into the unused portions of our brains and grasping the possibilities of our thinking is what creativity is all about.

When we hear moving pieces of music or are struck by the beauty of a painting we feel an emotional attachment to the creativity it took to produce the work. Creativity is often defined as the ability to create knowledge. When we see objects in a new way or hear music differently than we did before the newness of it stimulates our brains to process this information and see how it fits with our stored data built from years of experience.

The mind can choose to disregard the new information but for creativity to flourish and the brain to develop it is better to process the new data and see how it can help you in solving common everyday problems and training your brain to accept new ideas.

All new elements of information are based on preceding ones, and the information is considered “new” because it restructures the preceding items and adds new variables to the equations that make up our thinking processes. Creativity can be looked upon as a mental phenomena but history will prove that those who seemed blessed with inspiration are actually those who forced their minds to stretch and therefore actively sought out creativity rather than simply being “struck by it”.

Profound philosophers, master composers and extraordinary mathematicians can credit their striking creative abilities to the way each trained his brain to process new information and from that create new knowledge that can be built on in the future. Even if you don’t have the resources of higher learning institutions you can still stimulate the creative abilities of your mind through simple brain training games and programs that use puzzles, riddles and math problems to awaken the other 90% of our brains we rarely use.