What does “thinking outside the box” even mean and why is it important?  I believe the following definition I found on Answers.com explains it very well.

Breaking away from traditional or conventional thought to develop a unique, superior solution to a difficult problem.
~ Dictionary of Business Terms

Wouldn’t you agree that we need people in this country to think outside the box to solve the issues we are facing?  But who are we going to find to do it?

I have an idea!  How about you!  All you need to do is spend a little time expanding your creativity and comfort zone and you could be the one.

You are just as smart as the next person, but you’ve likely become stuck thinking just like everyone else.  Well, you’ve come to the right place!

I’ve gathered up several great ideas that will help you expand your creativity and comfort zone so you can begin dreaming up superior solutions to our difficult problems!

Time is wasting, so let’s get to it!

1.  Exercise the opposite half of your brain

In Three Easy Ways to Expand Your Creativity, we are encouraged to push ourselves to expand our comfort zone by switching modalities.  In particular, if you are a writer and habitually deal with words, then try drawing a picture instead.  If your work is logical and left-brain oriented, then try painting or daydreaming to get your creative juices flowing.  The key is to try something different than your normal way of doing things!

2.  Give yourself permission to experiment

We often kill creative ideas before we give them a chance.  We fail to have the faith of a child.  Children let their imaginations run wild and often believe anything is possible.  As adults we usually lose this freedom in our thinking.  What would the world be like today if people like Thomas Edison, Wilbur and Orville Wright and Alexander Graham Bell followed this pattern?  Give yourself permission to experiment!

3.  Challenge widely held assumptions

Many people get trapped in the herd mentality.  Expanding your creativity and comfort zone requires us to identify the assumptions about a problem and throw them out the window!  For instance, in business, we usually assume that getting more customers is better, but what if instead we doubled our prices and made equal money with only half the customers?  Never discount an idea until you fully explore it even if at first it seems absurd.

4.  Refuse to label yourself

We often divide people into two categories, the creative and logical.  I’ve heard tons of people say, “I’m just not that creative.”  Obviously, this is a self-fulfilling prophecy.  If we refuse to label ourselves in this way, then we open the door of possibility.  You may not be a talented artist, but everyone has creative skills.  If you can think and dream, then you are creative.  Refuse to label yourself!

5.  Try a new technique for opening up your creativity

Look for new ways to uncover your creative talent.  One technique that I use all the time is called mind mapping.  I find mind mapping to be an excellent technique for helping me to overcome writer’s block.  It is a free flow thinking tool that allows you to capture ideas without any real structure.  Often, we get bogged down trying to organize and wordsmith our thoughts.  This creates a bottleneck which interrupts creative ideas.  Mind mapping helps me to get around this obstacle.  Give it a try!

6.  Discuss it with someone that sees the world differently than you

We all know someone that sees the world through an entirely different lens than we do.  They are so different that sometimes you have to wonder if they are from outer space!  I suggest that you leverage the difference!  When you are up against a problem that seems especially stubborn, go discuss it with this friend.  Their different view might expose your assumptions or give you the creative jumpstart you need to see a new solution.

7.  Use a scientific approach

This may sound completely the opposite from thinking creatively, but actually good scientists are very free thinkers.  They have to be to make new discoveries.  In Expanding your Comfort Zone like a Champion, you will find the scientific approach to problem solving outlined very effectively.  Use this method to create hypotheses, test them and draw conclusions.

Expanding your creativity and comfort zone is easy!

We all need a little help from time-to-time getting out of our box.  It is easy to get stuck in a rut, but it is also easy to get ourselves out.  We just need to make a tiny bit of effort.

Hopefully, the ideas above are just what you needed to break free!  I’ve used these many times over the course of my life, so I know they work.

Now go out and solve all the world’s problems!  We need you!

How do you expand your creativity and comfort zone?

Photo by SOCIALisBETTER

If so, I commend you for your financial effort.  I am a firm believer in debt-free living.

My wife and I have been debt-free except for the mortgage for over a year now.  We used the debt snowball technique popularized most recently by Dave Ramsey to pay off everything.

The debt snowball works!  It really does.  I’ll share some of my experience and the experience of others in using it successfully to break free from the slavery of debt.

The advantages experienced from getting debt-free

Paying off all our debt has given us a sense of financial peace and security.  We aren’t as afraid of the recession because we aren’t strapped for cash.  In fact, we continue to live below our means since we paid off our last debt and we have some cash in the bank just in case.

As J.D. over at Get Rich Slowly points out in Free at Last! Saying Good-Bye to 20 Years of Debt, paying off your debt opens up your options in life.  It gives you more freedom to pursue your desires.

After using the debt snowball technique to pay off all his debt, J.D. was able to quit his day job and become a full-time blogger!  How awesome is that?

A brief overview of the debt snowball technique

The debt snowball technique is amazingly simple.  It doesn’t take much time to explain, yet it is a powerful tool for taking charge of your financial situation and reducing your debt.

Here’s how the debt snowball works:

1. List your debts from smallest to largest, but exclude your mortgage.  Be thorough!
2. Make minimum payments on all but the smallest debt to stay current.
3. Pay the most you can on the smallest debt until it is paid off.
4. Roll the total amount you were paying on the smallest debt into the payment on the next smallest.  This builds your snowball as you move through the list.

For an example of how the snowball works and for more details, please see my article Back To Basics- Using The Debt Snowball To Pay Off Debt.

Problems you may encounter with your debt snowball

Anytime you try something new, you are going to encounter unfamiliar situations that you aren’t sure how to solve.  Things may happen as you are paying off your debt that mess up your snowball.

Here are three common debt snowball issues and how to solve them:

1.  Giving up and incurring more debt.

As I said earlier, the debt snowball is amazingly simple, yet it is not easy.  It takes time, commitment and discipline.  The snowball, when done correctly, is designed to maximum your chance of success, but there are a couple of things you need to do to help.

First, you have to stop the bleeding in order to heal the patient.  You must stop incurring more debt!  If you don’t, then you’ll lose traction, become demoralized and quit.

Second, be sure you stick to the debt snowball technique exactly.  The debts are listed smallest to largest and attacked in that order because this method will ensure you have some early wins.  Getting a few small bills paid off will give you the confidence that freedom from debt is possible.  This is 80% mental and 20% method.

2.  Letting an unexpected expense get you off track.

This happens to almost everyone that is trying to get out of debt.  The key is to prepare properly.  Dave Ramsey and many others suggest creating a baby emergency fund of at least $1,000 prior to starting the snowball.

The baby emergency fund will allow you to handle a lot of smaller emergencies or unexpected expenses without going into more debt.  You simply use your emergency fund to pay the expense, temporarily suspend your snowball to replenish your emergency fund and then resume the snowball once you have $1,000 or more in the bank again.

3.  The temptation to try a shortcut.

I won’t lie to you.  Paying off debt sucks.  Once it is paid off it is wonderful, but the process kind of stinks.  You have to give up some things in the short-run in order to gain long-term financial success.  For most, it takes 18 to 24 months to pay off all their debt except the mortgage.

Along the way, you are going to be tempted to take some shortcuts.  You are going to see ads for places that will suggest they can help you reduce your debts to get them paid off faster.  You are going to hear about debt consolidation loans that suggest they can solve your problem instantly.

Do not fall victim to these persuasive peddlers of instant gratification.  Most of them will cost you more money and will not do anything for you that you can’t do for yourself!  Stick to the debt snowball plan and you will succeed.

Getting debt-free is worth all the effort, trust me!

You will not be disappointed in becoming debt-free.  It is a wonderful feeling of peace and security.  This is one of the best things that you can do for your kids and family.  They will learn from you and this will become part of your legacy.  How great will it be to know that you changed the financial destiny of a large chunk of your family tree?  Awesome!

Where are you at in your journey to becoming debt-free?

Photo by kamshots

I honestly don’t know how people accomplished anything before Google. We have all developed skills at specifying good keyword combinations to locate the information we need quickly and painlessly, but if you are like me, you occasionally have a hard time getting the results you want. Well, never fear because Lifehacker.com has posted some great techniques that will help you find exactly what you need in their article
Top 10 Obscure Google Search Tricks.