Innovation is a habit

Accepting reality has it’s advantages as it makes you focus intensely in the moment, but it also has it’s disadvantages because it puts imagination in the backseat!

Act different to think different. Easier said than done right? The truth is we’ve already , we just forget we did it. How is this possible? How is it that we lost that inquisitive mind? We just lost our imagination, threw the crayons away and got caught up in the reality of the adult world. That’s what happened!

Most innovations come out of some insight (aha! moment) someone had and it was all because this person was looking deeper and questioning the ‘believed’ truth of how something works. Just like kids, inquisitive people have a habit of questioning everything, looking for deeper insight by questioning the truth. Yet most people accept things for what they are, why is this? Because it’s safe, it’s that simple. We get trapped in automatic, mechanical thinking with no interest in asking why we’re doing whatever it is we’re doing and how we’re doing it.

When you look at things and believe that that’s the way they’re going to stay then you’re making a huge mistake because as you well know . Our job as innovators is to not accept reality for what it is, it’s to imagine what could be and that means thinking differently.

If you wish to change your reality I challenge you to regain your inner child. I challenge you to ‘be a kid’ again.

But before you start thinking differently (being a kid) you have to create the habit of ‘acting’ differently. This means that you’ll have to , it means challenging established rules, it means breaking tradition, it means putting away the tried and true, it means breaking away from reality.

Are you ready? Here it goes:

The single biggest thing you can do right now to start ‘acting’ differently is to ask ‘WHY?’ Do it everyday, do it 5 times for everything you come across. Ask yourself why you do things the way you do them, this will get your mind moving in all sorts of directions you forgot existed.

Once you get the Jello in your brain moving, ask ‘WHAT IF?’ to shake it up some more and get your imagination going. At this point your imagination is going to run wild and you’ll come up with some crazy ideas and start feeling like a kid again. The final piece to get you acting differently is to ask ‘WHY NOT?’ When you get here, you’ll think than anything is possible and that my friend is the whole point.

, but the truly imaginative one’s don’t just ask them all time, they ask them because they . If you want to create a better reality for yourself and for others, imagine what could be. Repeat after me: Why? What if? Why not? Repeat.

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