When you're faced with a problem that needs a creative solution, are you good at thinking of innovative ideas to help solve the problem? Or does your mind go completely blank?

Not everyone has a mind that is really good at coming up with creative solutions to problems, but everyone can improve this important skill. Everyone can learn to improve their ability to come up with innovative new ideas.

After all, there's no shortage of problems to solve in your own life, and in the rest of the world around you.

Inventing creative solutions to existing problems can be good for your self esteem. It can be good for your pocket book. It can also be good for the environment and for all humanity.

Right now, stop for a minute and take a look around you. Look at your room, look at your office, and look out your window. Every single man-made (or woman-made) object that you see around you is the result of someone's creative attempt to solve a problem.

For example, electric lights were developed to solve the problem of darkness at night. Cars were invented to solve the problem of slow transportation. Highways were invented to enable a lot of cars to move swiftly. Suburbs were invented so that millions of people could own a house of their own.

There is no shortage of problems to solve. Some of the most creative solutions that will be developed in the future will be for problems we don't even know yet are problems.

If you want to improve your ability to come up with creative solutions to existing problems, here are a few ideas that can help you:

You should always carry a notebook so that you can jot down creative ideas as they come to you. Many creative ideas have been lost forever because nobody bothered to write them down and they were later forgotten.

Spend time around other people who are naturally creative and discuss ideas with them.

Spend time with young children and play creative games with them that require an imagination. This can help to rekindle your own creativity.

Train yourself to look at everything with fresh eyes and a fresh mind. Don't take anything for granted. Nothing has to be the way it is. Practice some imagination exercises.

Brainstorm with yourself and with others. Ask yourself questions like, "What if we did this backwards? What if we do it slower? What if we only do this on Mondays?" Ask many silly questions and wait for the answers. Some may be silly answers, but some may turn out to be very useful.

Learn to use the technique of mind-mapping to help you see new relationships between some of the various parts of the problem.

Think about your problem just before you go to sleep. Relax your body and your mind, while you imagine the problem in vivid detail, using all your senses. Tell yourself that while you are sleeping, your brain will come up with solutions. Many problems have been solved this way.

Keep a pen and paper beside the bed. If you get any ideas while you are drifting off to sleep, write them down.

Increasing your ability to come up with innovative ideas is a necessary first step in becoming more creative. But is it enough? No, getting new ideas is just the beginning.

There are many people who generate ideas constantly, but they never act on any of them.

Creative ideas are like the sparks that shoot out of a campfire into the dark night and disappear. For the sparks to become a flame, they must land on suitable kindling and they must be protected and encouraged until the fire can maintain itself.

If you want your improved problem solving mind to produce useful results, you still have to choose the ideas that are most likely to work and you must carry them through.