Kick Start Your Brain with Design
So how designers think? And how might this way of thinking help us with business but also with personal decisions?
It all begins with a problem. See when we are facing a problem, what happens is that the left side of our brain takes over. The rational side. The strategic side. The side that analyses everything to the finest detail to provide the best possible solution in order to protect us. The side that, unless it has all the data it needs, will not make a clear decision, as it’s responsible for keeping you in the safe zone. And sometimes, not making a decision at all becomes a safe zone, because limbo becomes familiar. How many times do we not take action because we are afraid of change? Or because we cannot predict the outcome of our decisions? And then you start listening this little voice telling you “Be careful, stay safe, it’s ok here.” But this prevents you from moving forward, and the end result is that you are not happy.
How about trying a designer’s way of thinking? As we said before, when a designer sits down with a pencil and a piece of paper, they have no idea what the end result is going to look like. They just start with a line and little by little they build their way to the solution. It all starts with a single line. What really happens inside of your brain you when you actually start drawing a line? An amazing thing—the right side of your brain gets activated. Simply putting a pencil to the paper and beginning the designing process actually activates your brain. The side that is responsible for imagination and creativity. Imagination and creativity give birth to possibility. You stop seeing only the data that restrains you and you start seeing the things that are possible. You start using in perfect balance your logic with your inspiration, your perceptivity with your rationale. With one ultimate goal. To bring out “what could be” instead of “what currently is.”
See, when your brain senses possibility, dopamine is released. And when dopamine is released, motivation starts to kick in, innovation becomes possible, goal orientation becomes a habit. And everything starts with a very simple line that will give you this sense of possibility.
No matter how complicated a problem or its design might be, it always starts with a simple line on a piece of paper.
So my question to you is this: when you sit down with a pencil and a piece of paper and start to design the greater self that exists inside of you, what will your first line be?