How to make “Creative” condition?
I learnt that certain conditions enhance our creativity while I was learning about creativity. (if you are curious about what I did to develop creativity, you can read here).
All classes and courses told me that we become more creative when we felt relaxed and peaceful. Our motivations and interests also help us to be creative. But, we are not always feeling relaxed or motivated in our lives. When we want to summon our creativity, what can we do?
Creative conditions and habits
One thing we can do is to shift to relaxed and peaceful state by recalling the time when we felt relaxed and peaceful.
You recall the time you were most relaxed and peaceful (with eyes closed for better focus) and the feeling and sense you experienced from that moment. For example, gentle sea breeze on your face, warm feeling of having your mum’s soup, view from the top of the mountains you’ve climbed etc.. By savouring these feelings, you shift to more relaxed and peaceful state.
Another way to get into relaxed state is to collect our tiny day to day enjoyments and happiness, and recall them. This is similar to exercise gratitude in our daily lives.
Habits like daydreaming, observe everything, mindfulness, having new experiences and imaginative play also help develop our creativity.
Boosting Creativity course nicely summarised that “positive affect promotes unusual cognitive associations”, which is to connect dots for new ideas. The course also claimed that the positive affect widens cognitive categories. So, it seems that we can access more cognitive resources and make unusual connections when we are in positive state.
You may think of great artists like Van Gogh who seemed to suffer through his life. He didn’t seem to have had happy life. I thought so too. We often hear setbacks and suffering of great artists and inventors so it seemed that hardship is one of conditions to be creative. However, research suggests that it is not true.
One of courses pointed out that these great artists and inventors did not come up with ideas in the middle of their suffering but when they were relaxed and peaceful. I think their suffering might accentuate the peaceful experience and they became more appreciative of normal things — gratitude towards simple things. The suffering made them sensitive to positive state; hence the person became more positive. The book, WIRED TO CREATE by Scott Barry Kaufan & Carolyn Gregoire, also said,
“Up to 70 percent of trauma survivors report some positive psychological growth” and “Great artistic achievements often arise out of intense sufferings”.
Motivation and interests
Another creative condition is the motivation to create. In addition to “positive affect”, Boosting Creativity course said that both intrinsic and extrinsic motivations enhance our creativity. An extrinsic motivation could be that you need to solve a problem to meet your deadline or expectations. An intrinsic motivation could be that you want to create new shoes for your children who cannot find shoes fit them from shops.
A career advice like “Find your passion and go all out to excel in the area” makes sense when looking at motivation as a creative condition. Own passion and interest boost the creativity, help to come up with new ideas, and create a virtuous cycle of creativity.
So, we are better off doing what we are interested in rather than doing something we have to force ourselves to do. It made me wonder if this is the reason why we tend to be less creative in some aspect of work. We might get fixated with process or routine set by someone else because not only we are not interested in but also we don’t see needs to change.
I wanted to test if the positive conditions and habits enhance my creativity. I thought about how I could go about it and try to start new experience that I am interested in. I also liked idea of imaginative play so I decided to include this aspect to my new experience.
By the way, imaginative play was also listed as one of 10 things highly creative people do in the book, WIRED TO CREATE. They said:
“Imaginative play is essential for creativity in a variety of disciplines, from science and technology to creative writing, to music, to the visual arts”
Also
“The fundamental function of play is to contribute to the growth of a flexible brain that is primed for creative thinking and problem solving”
This encouraged me to try imaginative play hoping to make my brain flexible as I felt my brain needed a little bit of exercise lately.
What did I do?
I decided to start daily drawing to develop creativity. The reason I picked up drawing was that I liked drawing as a child (interest) and I have been wanting to improve my drawing skills. It also new experience for me and requires imaginative play for some drawings.
I have started drawing every day since August 2020. The first week was difficult as I got the fear of the blank canvas and was unsure what to draw. Having varieties of drawing materials (pencil, pen, charcoal, colour pencils, pastels, nibs, brushes and ink) made me indecisive too. So, I decided to pick one medium as a start and started pay more attention to my surroundings trying to find subjects of drawing for the day.
How have I changed?
- I became curious observer of surroundings
- Less fear of the blank canvas — became easier to put first line
- Started thinking about “what if” for drawing ideas frequently— training imagination, creative traits
How has it impacted on my work and life?
- My observation became sharper and started noticing subtle differences and nuances helping me to respond to people and situation better
- Less hesitate to share and try out not fully developed idea with others
- I became more flexible to new ideas or unfamiliar situations
These are the changes I observed by cultivating creative conditions in my daily routine. I now come up with new ideas for my daily activities and am trying different activities instead of mindlessly following routines I accumulated over many years. I am still drawing every day, and I enjoy it. I am curious to see what changes I will see in my life through creative habits.
What would you do to cultivate your creativity?
Key Takeaway
- Recalling happy memories and practicing gratitude towards simple things in our lives enhance our mood to be creative
- Cultivating positive emotions enhance our creativity
- Intrinsic and extrinsic motivations, and own interest enhance creativity
