Visit somewhere new this Holiday season. It improves your critical thinking and creativity.

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As the world unwinds and gravitates towards year-end holidays, let’s take the opportunity to reflect and celebrate the current year and re-sharpen our laser focus for next year. Taking a page off from reading from an article on the mental benefits of vacationing in somewhere new authored by Todd Kashdan published in Harvard Business Reviews (Kashdan, 2019), perhaps this is also a golden opportunity to interject a twist into your travel plans.

With 2 surveys conducted with 485 adults in the USA and followed by another survey 197 traveling adults in China, taking your holidays in the new location allows the development of 3 characteristics while taking some time off from your hustle and bustle of work life.

Respondents have reported being more tolerant and willing to afford trust on a greater scale. This allows us to develop better interpersonal relationships with colleagues back home. The ability to empathize provides a character growth in us. By avoiding similar holiday spots a year in year out pushes us to acclimatize rapidly in an unknown environment. Instead of going back to the popular beach resort or mountain skiing in Japan, a holiday downtown in the back alley in Nepal, Indonesia or even in Tokyo will enlighten your senses.

The other notable character development is emotional agility as described by Kashdan. Traveling in an unknown place forces us to adapt and hold back judgment. This agility makes us better problem solvers as we clearly navigate an ambiguous situation. Taking emotional agility to the next level, we can certainly improve our critical thinking capability.

Critical thinking improvements are seen when we are able to question our assumptions, tackle problems logically and seeking different opinions or thought processes as advocated by (Lee, 2019). In her writings on taking simple steps in developing critical thinking, the sincerity in applying assumption review will certainly make us better problem solvers. If you happen to be in Midvalley (Kuala Lumpur) parking lot this week, you will probably conclude that business sentiments are rather optimistic. It is jam-packed with shoppers reflecting buoyant economic sentiments. In fact, this optimism will be carried forward to CNY. (Chinese New Year). However, questioning the assumptions also allow us to reflect better that the snapshot in the parking alley is a temporary reprise of the actual economic rumbling on the ground.

Finally traveling in new locations will spur growth in creativity. A study of 46 dutch workers in the same article by Kashdan observed better output in creativity using test objects like spoons, pencils, bricks etc. The unconventional problem solving was also documented by studies by researchers in Singapore.

Therefore, make this holiday season something different this year. Go to new places and drive the growth of empathy, emotional agility, and creativity. The off the beaten track approach definitely will see more pluses than minuses. In all, the value of creativity in problem-solving improves our development in critical thinking as we are able to withhold judgment as a result of international exposure and culture experience.

As 2019 comes to a close and we welcome 2020, its time to reflect and energize our creativity the coming year ahead. Merry Christmas and Happy New Year from all of us in Garganto. Have a great holiday and see you next year.

References

Kashdan, T. B. (2019, Dec 23). The Mental Benefits of vacationing somewhere new. Retrieved from Harvard Business Review: https://hbr.org/2018/01/the-mental-benefits-of-vacationing-somewhere-new

Lee, H. B. (2019, Dec 23). 3 Simple habits to improve critical thinking. Retrieved from Harvard Business Review: https://hbr.org/2019/05/3-simple-habits-to-improve-your-critical-thinking

Photo Credit : https://curiostraveller.com/2018/08/29/10-places-to-see-street-art-in-malaysia/

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author
Doh Hau Goh
Goh Doh Hau is in the leadership team of Garganto, a boutique style digital marketing agency and ecommerce builder. He enjoys marrying evidence-based research with observation insights to curate gems of practical information. He is a MBA graduate from Sydney Business School (University of Wollongong)

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author
Doh Hau Goh
Goh Doh Hau is in the leadership team of Garganto, a boutique style digital marketing agency and ecommerce builder. He enjoys marrying evidence-based research with observation insights to curate gems of practical information. He is a MBA graduate from Sydney Business School (University of Wollongong)

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