On Positivity and Dealing with Creative Block
If you do anything creative, you know those moments, when you seem to be totally useless and helpless. You either have no ideas or you see no ways to develop them into something proper. Of course, struggling is common and you are aware of it, but you do not remember it being this bad, so it dejects you. Making new attempts does not help, and you keep on torturing yourself with all sorts of negative thoughts. It gets harder all the time, so at some point you stop trying, because you are drained. As a result, you get an extra reason to critisize yourself and to be really hard on yourself…the vicious circle is permanent, unless you break out of it. I do realize that even if you have nothing in common with creative activities, those states are familiar to you too. Basically, this is going to be a kick in the ass for anyone (who is trying to do something a little outside of the necessary minimum, somethihng more, something special). For anyone! I believe this post is going to be valuable for anyone who has ever struggled with something.
Let`s get back to creativity. According to Mark McGuinness, there are seven kinds of creative block: the mental block, the emotional barrier, work habits that don’t work, personal problems, poverty, overwhelm, communication breakdown. Distinguishing these categories might be extremely helpful, as it lets you analyze your case better and gives you an opportunity to understand your particular problem more clearly, which naturally results into finding a way to deal with it sooner.
As i have been exploring this subject, I have found an extremely interesting scientific work on this matter. It is called “Positive Affect and The Complex Dynamics of Human Flourishing”. Even its title is fascinating to me! Its main idea is that if you engrain positivity into your daily life on a daily basis, you will be much more productive and you will do whatever it is you are doing much better, apart from generally feeling better. I would like to share a few great ideas from it with you.
It is essential to start from explaining that “to flourish means to live within an optimal range of human functioning, one that connotes goodness, generativity, growth, and resilience”. Would you like your life to consist of these four ingredients? I would, for sure.
“Specifically, broadened mindsets carry indirect and long-term adaptive value because broadening builds enduring personal resources, like social connections, coping strategies, and environmental knowledge. As an illustration, consider the link between interest and exploration. Research shows that initially positive attitudes — like interest and curiosity — produce more accurate subsequent knowledge than do initially negative attitudes — like boredom and cynicism”. I think this is an extremely valuable thought!!! How is your mindset built? How do you try to motivate yourself? Do you say “if I do it, I will become smarter/better/more successful” or do you say “if I do not do it, I will turn into a stupid looser”? Just think about it! Naturally, my examples have raw angles, whereas we tend to use milder versions of such ideas. Moreover, it is totally common to be passive agressive towards ourselves, and we have to change this behavioural pattern. We really should!
“Positivity, by prompting approach and exploration, creates experiential learning opportunities that confirm or correct initial expectations. By contrast, because negativity promotes avoidance, opportunities to correct false impressions are passed by”. Therefore, when something goes wrong, when we do not manage to do something and we fill our life with negativity, we take away another chance to overcome those aforementioned difficulties, whereas if we added positivity, it would be the other way around. Can you imagine it?
“Although positive affect is transient, the personal resources accrued across moments of positivity are durable. As these resources accumulate, they function as reserves that can be drawn on to manage future threats and increase odds of survival. So experiences of positive affect, although fleeting, can spark dynamic processes with downstream repercussions for growth and resilience”. This part proves that details truly matter. Every little thing that brings positive emotions into your life is important, you must value it and you must make sure that it happens from time to time. At first, it will seem like your life is getting slightly better, and then, after time you will find out that you have become a person with more skills on a higher quality level. Isn`t it promising? it sure is.
Llastly, I wanted to add this part in order to explain a little better those four ingredients and what they themselves consist of. What for? So that you could bring them into your life and make it a flourishing one, which would result into forgetting what creative block is. “Human flourishing is optimal functioning characterized by four key components: (a) goodness, indexed by happiness, satisfaction, and superior functioning; (b) generativity, indexed by broadened thought–action repertoires and behavioral flexibility; (c) growth, indexed by gains in enduring personal and social resources; and (d) resilience, indexed by survival and growth in the aftermath of adversity”.
After learning about the importance of positivity in our lives, let`s get to the question that everything started with — how to deal with creative block? In this post I mentioned that the more I thought about writing, the harder it got and then the harder it got, the more I thought about it and made everything worse. Then I got disappointed in myself and also very-very upset. I had no idea how to get out of this state, but I did not stop looking for answers. In the end, I realized there were two things you should do. One — let the work of others inspire you. I read as much as possible on a daily basis (I read books, that make me feel and think; I read articles, that might be helpful and educational, as well as inspirational. I look for value in everything I fill my spare time with). When I was reading last Sunday, things started clearing out in my head, which made me open my notebook and start looking at the ideas that I had there. It bring us to point two — keep on engaging with the ideas you have or had, keep on spending time with your previous or potential work, let it be and let it grow. I was turning pages and glancing at my notes, when an idea came to my mind. I wrote that idea down, I started thinking how it could become a text. What I would like to say in it and how exactly I would do it. Right after that I realized that I actually knew what to do with another idea, that has been cooking in my mind for a few months now and seemed to lack something. Out of a sudden, I was cured!!! There was no more creative block. I was filled with both ideas and motivation to turn them into results. I was fascinated and excited. As a result, I wrote an article that night and I sent it to an editor right away. Even though, a text needs to live, so if it is not published, if it is not being read, it is dead, I did not care about the next step then. I simply appreciated that I was able to nurture an idea into a text in a short period of time. I was excited and happy! I could not wait for another day to start, so that I could go on.
I woke up before six am the next morning, because my mind knew — there was a lot of work to be done. It was fascinating, because I could not wake up early for weeks now. I was exhausted and I had a very low level of energy on a constant basis, but that day I jumped out of bed, I dealt with my morning routine and I got back to my laptop to work on my other project, that has been waiting for my attention for a very long time. Oh, it was such a good day! And it was sucha good week! Nothing extraordinary happened in the outter world, but so much extraordinary took place in the inner one. I thought about it all again and again. When I had found the scientific article, that I mentioned earlier, everything got into place — I was not letting myself be more creative, because I kept on being negative, I kept on filling my thoughts with negativity, which does not nurture the right kind of creativity, it destroys you, your mind and your soul. Realizing all of it has been quite a journey, and I am thrilled to share it with you!
To sum this all up, I would like to say — creative block exists, but we are the ones who let it stay and grow. Yes, of course, there are various external cicumstances, that may interfere with our creative process, but in the end we are the ones who either let it fill all of our space or fight it back by adding positivity to our environment. December has been stressful and it will remain so till the end. Moreover, January is not going to be easy for me either, but it matters less, it affects me less, because I know one thing for sure — I will keep on waking up at six am every day in order to read and write in solitude and perfect silence. I am not saying, that there will be a new text every day, but I am saying that I will work on one every day. It will make me feel better and it will give me everything I need to wake up the next day again and to continue creating.
P.S. At first, I was planning to start this post with an image that says “get your shit together”, but after I finished the article it became clear that such a sign was yet another example of being passive aggressive towards yourself, so I changed it for the one that says “bloom”, which to me is a perfect alternative.
Originally published at whatbeingtwentyislike.blogspot.com on December 16, 2016.
