Last weekend I was on my way back from a birthday party about 70km away from where I live. It was late and I felt like calling one of my friends, that I had a lot of inspiring conversations with. We talked about various (mostly nonsense) things, but then we had a really nice talk about “thinking”. This inspired me to write this article.

First of all, I agree with the slogan from Apple: I think, it is important to “think different.” Thinking different and freely, without the bias of religion or prejudice is really important to me. That’s what our f*cking brains are there for anyway!

So, in terms of the way we think, we all fall into either the divergent or convergent category, or a combination of both of these. In your quest for fulfillment, success and joy in your life, it is essential to know what type of thinker you truly are.

The Convergent Thinker
A convergent thinker is someone who looks only at limited sets of solutions or options, much like answering multiple choice kinds of questions. You don’t think there are any other available options beyond what you understand and see currently. As an example, in terms of your career, you believe and think you will be a loser or nobody if you don’t become, say a lawyer or doctor or whatever it is you want to become. In terms of your health, there are only two things you can see: You are either ill or healthy. The same thing with your job, there are only two options: Failure or Success. When it comes to life, you are happy or unhappy. The most common way of thinking is convergent thinking. With convergent thought, a problem becomes central to your focus and resources are obtained from the outside. Then you converge them and choose the option you think is the best one.

Divergent Thinker
An individual who considers multiple options for resolving problems and is always looking ‘outside the box’ is a divergent thinker. Your mind is opened up to various different directions instead of just one direction. Instead of there being one definite answer, for you there could be several different possibilities, new perspectives and ideas. So whereas convergent thinking is like a multiple choice test, when it comes to divergent think it is more like an open-ended test. There are no right or wrong answers and you can freely explain your answers. You formulate answers rather than choosing them.

Although divergent thinking may appear to be a better way to approach things than convergent thinking does, you shouldn’t necessarily disregard convergent thinking as being unimportant. For example, a convergent thinker is needed for solving a mathematical problem. However, in terms of being able to make a major decision, it will serve you well to be a divergent thinker. To get the most out of life, they both are basically important.

It’s Basic Math: Convergent Thinking + Divergent Thinking = Creativity.

Scientists for years have been studying the key mechanisms that underlie creativity along with how they can be improved. There was a study conducted by international researchers that compared standard tests which are used for predicting whether someone is a divergent or convergent thinker. They discovered that divergent thinking and convergent thinking were unrelated. However, what was quite surprising was creativity was correlated to both of them. So, they both are useful when it comes to helping to improve our creative minds.

According to the Geneplore model (a popular creativity model), the creativity process is a cyclical process where ideas are generated and then a determination is made as to which ideas are the most helpful ones and then applying them. Generation of ideas (the first stage) involves divergent thinking. Selecting the best option (second stage) involves convergent thinking. Therefore, in order to achieve optimal creativity, divergent thinking needs to be combined with convergent thinking.

A majority of us are better with one kind of thinking than the other one. However, that doesn’t mean we are unable to apply both divergent and convergent thinking as part of our lives. It isn’t necessary for you to master both of these. A little of each type of thinking complements the other.