In 1666, while walking through a garden, one of history's most influential scientists was struck by a flash of creative brilliance that would change the world. And thus the concept of gravity was given birth to.
The story of the fall of the apple has become one of the most enduring and iconic examples of the creative moment. It represents the inspired genius that fills your mind during those "eureka moments" when creative conditions are ideal. 2
However, what most people forget is that Newton worked on his ideas of gravity for almost twenty years until, in 1687, he published his groundbreaking book, The Principles: Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy. The fall of the apple was simply the beginning of a line of thought that continued for decades.
The famous page describing the Newton's apple incident in Memoirs of the Life of Sir Isaac Newton by William Stukeley.
Newton isn't the only one struggling with a great idea for years. For all of us, creative thinking is a process. In this article, I'll share the science of creative thinking, discuss which conditions drive creativity and which hinder it, and offer practical tips for being more creative.
CREATIVE THINKING: DESTINATION OR DEVELOPMENT?
Our brains must make connections between seemingly unrelated ideas in order to think creatively. Is this a skill we are born with or one we develop through practice? Let's take a look at the research to discover an answer.
George Land, a very creative performance researcher, studied 1,600 five-year-olds in the 1960s, and 98 percent of the children scored in the "highly creative" range. Dr. Land reassessed each topic every five years. Only 30% of the same children scored in the highly creative range when they were 10 years old. This number dropped to 12 percent at age 15 and only 2 percent at age 25. As the children became adults, they were effectively taught creativity. In the words of Dr. Land, "you learn non-creative behavior." 3
Similar trends have been discovered by other researchers. For example, a study of 272,599 students found that although IQ scores have increased since 1990, creative thinking scores have decreased. 4
This does not mean that creativity is 100% learned. Genetics play an important role. Barbara Kerr, a psychology professor, claims that "about 22% of the variation [in creativity] is due to the influence of genes." After examining the differences, this discovery was made. in creative thinking between groups of twins. 5
All of this to say, stating that "I'm not the creative type" is a pretty weak excuse to avoid creative thinking. Certainly some people are prepared to be more creative than others. However, almost all people are born with some level of creative ability, and most of our creative thinking skills are trainable.
Now that we know creativity is a skill that can be improved, let's talk about why, and how, practice and learning affect your creative output.
INTELLIGENCE AND CREATIVE THINKING
What does it take to realize your full creative potential?
As I mentioned earlier in my article on Threshold Theory, being in the top 1% of intelligence has no correlation with being fantastically creative. Instead, you simply have to be smart (not genius) and then work hard, deliberately practice, and do your reps.
As long as you meet a threshold of intelligence, then brilliant creative work is within your grasp. In the words of researchers in a 2013 study, “we got evidence that once the intelligence threshold is reached, personality factors become more predictive of creativity. 6
GROWTH MENTALITY
What exactly are these “personality factors” that researchers refer to when it comes to boosting your creative thinking?
One of most critical components is how you view your talents internally. More specifically, whether you approach the creative process with a fixed mindset or a growth mindset greatly influences your creative abilities.
The distinctions between these two mindsets are detailed in Carol Dweck's excellent book Mindset: The New Psychology of Success (audiobook).
The basic idea is that when we use a fixed mindset we approach tasks as if our talents and abilities were fixed and unchanging. However, in a growth mindset, we believe that our skills can be improved with effort and practice. Interestingly, we can easily go one way or the other depending on how we speak and praise our efforts.
Here is a brief summary of Dweck's word:
“The whole self-esteem movement wrongly taught us that praising intelligence, talent, skills would build self-esteem and self-esteem, and everything great would follow. But we have found it counterproductive. People who are praised for their talent now worry about doing the following, taking on the difficult task, and not looking talented, tarnishing that reputation for brilliance. So instead, they'll stay in their comfort zone and get really defensive when faced with setbacks.
So what should we praise? The effort, the strategies, the tenacity and persistence, the sand people, the resistance they show in the face of obstacles, the rebound when things go wrong and knowing what to try next. So I think a big part of promoting a growth mindset in the workplace is conveying those process values, giving feedback, rewarding people who are involved in the process and not just a successful outcome. "
—Carol Dweck 7
SHAME AND CREATIVITY
In practice, how can we apply the growth mindset to creativity? In my experience, it all boils down to one thing: being willing to look bad while engaging in an activity.
As Dweck says, the growth mindset is more about process than outcome. This is easy to accept in theory, but very difficult to maintain in practice. Most people do not want to deal with the embarrassment or embarrassment that comes with learning a new skill.
The list of errors that you can never recover from is very short. On some level, I believe most of us are aware of this.. We know that our lives will not be destroyed if the book we write does not sell or if we are rejected for a potential date or if we forget someone's name when we present them. It is not necessarily what comes after the event that concerns us. It's the possibility of looking stupid, feeling humiliated, or dealing with embarrassment along the way that keeps us from getting started.
In order to fully embrace the growth mindset and enhance your creativity, you must be willing to act on these feelings that so often deter us.
HOW TO BE MORE CREATIVE
Assuming you're willing to do the hard work of facing your inner fears and working through failure, here are some practical strategies to get more creative.
Limit yourself. Carefully designed restraints are one of your best tools to stimulate creative thinking. Dr. Seuss wrote his most famous book when he was limited to 50 words. When playing on a smaller field, soccer players develop more sophisticated skill sets. Designers can improve their large-scale designs by using a 3-inch-by-5-inch canvas. The more we limit ourselves, the more resources we have.
Write more. For almost three years, I posted a new article every Monday and Thursday on JamesClear.com. The longer I stayed with this program, the more I realized that I had to write about a dozen average ideas before I discovered a brilliant one. I created a larger surface area for a creative spark to strike me by producing a large volume of work.
Not interested in sharing your writing publicly? Julia Cameron's Morning Pages routine is a great way to use writing to increase your creativity, even if you don't intend to write for others.
Expand your knowledge. Forcing myself to write about seemingly disparate topics and ideas is one of my most successful creative strategies. For example, when describing our daily behaviors, I must be creative when using basketball strategies from the 1980s, ancient word processing software, or Zen Buddhism. "You will do better in psychology and life if you expand your knowledge." psychologist Robert Epstein says.
Sleeping Longer In my article on how to sleep better, I shared a study from the University of Pennsylvania that revealed the incredible impact of sleep on mental performance. The main finding was this: sleep debt is cumulative and if you sleep 6 hours a night for two weeks in a row, your physical and mental performance decreases to the same level as if you had been awake for 48 hours in a row. Like all cognitive functions, creative thinking is significantly affected by lack of sleep.
Enjoy the sun and nature. Before and after a four-day backpacking trip, 56 backpackers were tested with a variety of creative thinking questions in one study. The backpackers' creativity had increased by 50% by the end of the trip, according to the researchers. This research supports findings from other studies, which show that spending time in nature and increasing your exposure to sunlight can lead to higher levels of creativity. 8
Embrace positive thinking. Positive thinking can lead to significant improvements in creative thinking, which sounds a little fluffy to me. Why? Research in positive psychology has revealed that we tend to think more broadly when we are happy. This concept, known as enlargement and construction theory, makes it easy for us to create creative connections between ideas. On the contrary, sadness and depression seem to lead to more restrictive and limited thinking.
Send it. The honest truth is that creativity is hard work. The best thing to do is choose a pace that you can sustain and consistently deliver content. Commit to the process and create on a regular basis.. The only way creativity becomes a reality is by submitting.
FINAL THOUGHTS ON CREATIVE THINKING
Creativity is a process, not an event. It's not just a eureka moment. You must overcome mental and internal roadblocks. You have to deliberately commit to practicing your craft. And you have to go through the processes for years, maybe even decades like Newton did, to see your creative genius flourish.
Footnotes
1. Memoirs of the Life of Sir Isaac Newton by William Stukeley. Page 15.
2. In some versions of the famous incident, Newtons is struck on the head by a falling apple and exclaims, "Eureka!" When you recognize the significance of your sharp perception. There is no evidence that an apple fell from Isaac's head, but the story of the apple falling appears to be true. Both William Stukeley, a friend of Newton's, and John Conduitt, an assistant to Newton, confirmed in separate texts that the sight of a falling apple stimulated Newton's thoughts on gravity.
3. George Land and Beth Jarman's Breakpoint and Beyond: Mastering the Future Today (1992).
4. The creativity crisis: declining creative thinking scores on the Torrance tests of creative thinking. Creativity Research Journal, Volume 23, Number 4, 2011.
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