Opposite thinking is a valuable tool that can help you come up with creative ideas by looking at a problem or situation from a new perspective. This is a great technique to begin thinking out of the box, and especially powerful if you’re feeling stuck in an area of your life.
In this post, we’ll provide two examples of opposite thinking in action, and we’ll discuss how you can use it to enhance your life.
What Is Opposite Thinking?
Opposite thinking, also known as reverse thinking, is a technique for generating innovative ideas. It can help you quickly generate out-of-the-box solutions to problems in both your personal and professional lives. Not only is it effective, but it is also simple and fun to use.
Doing the opposite of what’s expected can also be an effective strategy in such competitive situations as sports, business, politics, romance, etc.
In most endeavours, we build up certain expectations about what the other side will or won’t do. For example:
- In football, a third-and-one situation will typically cause the defence to prepare for a plunge into the line.
- Retail stores bet heavily that advertising between Thanksgiving and Christmas will pay big dividends.
- Most political candidates will have a last-minute media blitz.
In these situations, trends get established.
When you do the opposite of what people expect, chances are good that you’ll catch them off-guard and be more successful in reaching your objective.
An Example of Opposite Thinking in Medicine
For many years nineteenth-century English physician Edward Jenner worked to find a cure for smallpox. After studying many cases, he reached an impasse in his thinking.
Then he reversed his thinking. Instead of focusing on people who had smallpox, he switched his attention to people who never had smallpox.
He found that dairymaids rarely got the disease. It turned out that most dairymaids had had cowpox, a similar but usually nonfatal affliction.
Cowpox had served to “vaccinate” its victims against the more dangerous smallpox. This led to Jenner’s concept of “vaccinating” people.
An Example of Opposite Thinking in Design
You might also try reversing the order in which you do a particular operation or project. Designer Christopher Williams tells the following story about an architect who built a cluster of large office buildings in a central green.
When construction was completed, the landscape crew asked him where he wanted the sidewalks between the buildings.
“Not yet,” was the architect’s reply. “Just plant the grass solidly between the buildings.”
By late summer, the new lawn was laced with pathways of trodden grass, connecting building to building and building to outside.
As Williams put it: “The paths followed the most efficient line between the points of connection, turned easy curves rather than right angles, and were sized according to traffic flow. In the fall, the architect simply paved in the pathways. Not only did the pathways have a design beauty, but they responded directly to user needs.”
How to Use Opposite Thinking in Your Own Life
Make a list of what you could do to be less successful and go in the opposite direction of your goals.
Thinking in reverse can be both hilarious and revealing.
Think of ideas that are impractical.
Come up with as many unusual and unorthodox ideas as you can.
When you begin to think out of the box and you are freed from normalcy and “reality” expectations, you might come up with gem ideas you wouldn’t have otherwise thought of.
Whether in business, love, sports, or any endeavour for that matter, fortune often favours the bold. So don’t be afraid to be different and try something radical now and then. This is a great technique to begin thinking out of the box.
