Creativity: Nature, nurture or pure luck?
The other day I was trying to think of some new and original ideas for a project I was working on and the creative juices just werent flowing. The ideas were just the same old same old. Now I know we all get a mental block every now and then but is it possible to force yourself to be in a creative mood?We can have piles of inspiration around us, some have a scrap book, some have collections of images online whatever system works for us, but do we have to be in the right mood to be creative or can we sit down and make ourselves be creative. Personally I feel like I have to be in the right mood with the right project to really shine but then again Im not natually artistic. I would much rather sit down and hack out some code which I can normally do no matter what mood Im in. Which brings me to my next point.
Is being creative linked to genetics from birth or can we make decisions in our childhood and later lives to ensure we turn out to be creative? I used to play lots of Lego when I was little which allowed me to build some amazing models which simply couldnt exist in reality yet showed a great immagination. Now however I have to be in the mood for creative so did I not do enough in my early years to ensure my creativity or am I just not built for thinking differently?
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catchy little title, LOL
I actually went on a course at IBM called ‘Thinking for Innovation’ so can relate to what you are talking about. Creativity is indeed a state of mind and some people are naturally better at it than others – some people see the world as bricks and trees whereas others see it as metaphors and dreams.
One mental model you might like was made by Walt Disney – there are three people in your head – your Dreamer, who comes up with crazy funs random ideas, then there’s your Realist, who asks lots of questions like ‘how can that idea happen in real life?’, then there’s your Critic, who brings you back to reality with harsh truths and says things like ‘that’ll never work and don’t be stupid’. If you let the critic and the dreamer talk to each other you will not be as creative as you could be so separate your creative time (coming up with ideas ONLY) from your logical time (realist can talk to critic only and vice versa).
If you are looking for inspiration you might like the idea of ‘Agendaless time’. I assume you have heard of the phrase ‘I’ll sleep on it’ – that comes from the notion that when you sleep your unconcious mind has time to process the thoughts of your day and view things from a different angle. You can call on this ability during that day but you cannot do anything. Go outside – take nothing with you, go for a walk, sit down, anything, but don’t think – just do nothing – don’t even look at your watch to see how much time you have left – just look around and empty your mind of stuff. If you’re lucky you might see or think of something slightly differently which will be your unconcious mind hacving some input into your concious thoughts.
When I carried out this activity, I saw the moon in the middle of the day and realised it’s actually always there irrelvant of if we can see it or not – hiding in plain sight.
Just a few ideas you might find interesting….