Finding The "Click" Moments of Creativity

My mother was a painter. Well, more truthfully she was a stay-at-home mom who painted. Our home was filled with her paintings, and our basement was filled with her paintings-in-progress. But she rarely showed her paintings beyond the walls of our home. Minimal gallery showings. Minimal paintings sold. I think she wanted to share her paintings more publicly, but she was afraid of what people might say. Her immigrant parents never understood her creative streak and didn’t encourage it. When she was offered a scholarship to an art school she pushed it aside to get married and have children. Then, one of her children grew up with a passion for the arts. Not painting, performing. Dance and music and acting. I wanted to pursue this as a career, but, like her, I was afraid. Rather than help me to push away this fear, my mom gave voice to it. Not surprisingly, after a few years, I decided I wouldn’t pursue performing.

This family story sticks with me. I wonder about other people’s creative paths; those who aren’t deterred by a less-than-supportive parent or any number of other obstacles to a creative pursuit. What makes a person committed to his or her own creativity?I wonder about those who are discouraged, but push ahead anyway. I wonder about the little moments that nurture or extinguish creativity: the supportive friend or relative that nurtures, versus the single careless comment that can extinguish. I wonder how I can be better at nurturing creativity-- in others, and in myself?

This question is vitally important to me on so many levels. First, I am interacting with young people interested in living creative lives every day in my job as a professor in a school focused on media and communication. Second, I have a wide range of friends working in creative industries. Third, I am married to a person passionate about his creative pursuits. Fourth, I have a child who I want to grow up confident in her own creative pursuits. Fifth...it’s not too late for me, is it?

This question has lead me to book upon book, from TED talk to workshop, from conference to deep discussions with creative people I respect and admire.

Below is a bit of what I’ve learned in that ongoing hunger for advice, guidance and best practice on this topic. It’s a list of "creativity clicks”-- actions that (lots of scholars and practicing creatives feel) help click creativity into place.

This is not meant to be comprehensive…it’s a start.

This is me trying to jump in and take my own advice. (See #1.)

1. Creativity is a “jump first, ask questions later” pursuit

The worst enemy of creativity is the question “why?” Stop asking questions that allow you to back out. Just say “why not?” and jump in.

2. Creativity may be hard to nurture, but it’s easy to thwart.

This was said by Adam Grant in his New York Times op-ed, “How to raise a creative child. Step one: Back off.” Sometimes a single criticism, unwittingly spoken by a stranger or loved one can too easily turn into a repeating loop in our thoughts that keeps us from pushing ahead. We have to get better at pushing aside the comments that derail our creative pursuits, even when (perhaps, especially when) the offhanded comment comes from inside our own heads.

One way to do that is through the power of “small wins”. Teresa Amabile, a world-renowned researcher on creativity, writes about the power of small wins to keep us on track. She says that small wins build resilience and allow us to make progress. Her research shows that the more frequently people experience progress, “the more likely they are to be creatively productive in the long run.”

3. Creativity needs breadth, not just depth

One of my favorite videos about managing creative people features Randy Nelson (formerly of Pixar Animation, now Apple) describing how Pixar hires. He says Pixar looks for breadth in a person, not just depth. Pixar has found that breadth is reflected in people who are more interestED than interestING. “It’s easy to be interesting. Anyone can have a pink mohawk or multiple piercings. Interested is different. It’s the person who leans in and wants to know more.” It’s not that depth isn’t important. It’s just that depth without breadth won’t nurture your creativity. Breadth is where curiosity and imagination live.

4. Creativity is joy…or at least it should be

Have you read the book by Marie Kondo “The Life Changing Magic of Tidying Up” yet? You may wonder how I’m going to connect tidying up with creativity, but bare with me. Marie’s book has sections on folding t-shirts and organizing photographs, but her philosophy ultimately comes down to one essential question, “Does it bring you joy?” If the answer is yes, keep the item. If the answer is no, toss it. To Marie, it’s as simple as that. Of course, she’s talking about whether the sweater that’s been hanging in your closet for the past two years brings you joy, but I’m talking about your creativity. If there’s something about dancing or pottery or standup comedy that brings you joy, do it. It’s not a question of whether you’re good at it or great or even bad at something, it’s simply about doing the creative pursuit that brings you joy. Just to be clear, that doesn’t mean you’ll feel wall-to-wall joy every time you pursue your creativity. Pursuing creativity is a challenging goal and challenging goals stretch us, and stretching is a bit painful…at first. Does it bring you joy? Then do it. Marie’s philosophy is built on the notion that if you can push yourself to seek joy in your clothes and all the other crap floating around your home, you’ll start to recognize joy, and then you’ll be more capable of finding joy in other areas of your life. So, consider cleaning out your closet in your pursuit of creativity.

5. Creativity deserves non-negotiable time

Last year I was trying to schedule a monthly meeting with a group of busy people. Never easy. Everyone was able to meet on Fridays at 11 except one person, and instead of simply saying “sorry, I can’t make that time”, he said “sorry, that’s my writing day”. Wow. A non-negotiable commitment in action. Could I do that? Last year I tried promising myself I would set aside time for creative pursuits and failed abysmally. Every time someone else expressed a need, I put aside my own need to tend to theirs. But Darin inspired me. For 2016 I’m trying a different tactic. At the start of the year I put in my calendar “Sherri writes” on every Friday. That’s my creative promise to myself. (I’m even holding myself to it by telling you I’ve made the commitment.) Other requests have come up and I’ve said no. Slowly, it’s getting easier to not feel guilty about saying no and I’ve come to look forward to my writing time. Sometimes I share what I’ve written with others; some of it I keep to myself. I’m not sure what will come of it, but something interesting has already started happening. Because I know I have time set aside for a creative pursuit every week, some element of every day includes at least a moment of hopeful anticipation for that day, which means I think about my creativity more than I did previously.

This has not been an easy “click” for me. But when I look back at what I’ve written so far I’m encouraged to try it again next week. Who knows what topic you might be subjected to in my future writing? Malcolm Gladwell famously wrote about the need to accumulate 10,000 hours in order to built a high level of competence. But the way I see it, you’ll never get near those 10,000 hours if you’re aren’t passionate about what you’re doing, a key ingredient of most creative pursuits. I may only be at hour 52, but that’s 52 hours closer to 10,000 than I was 3 months ago.

6. Creativity benefits from reminders

You might think if there were something you really wanted to do, your brain would remember to do it. Yeah...not so much. Creativity needs reminders. Experiment with ways to tell yourself you are creative and to set aside time to be creative. Here’s one: instead of using a random jumble of numbers as a passcode for your phone or computer, make your passcode the sentence “I am so incredibly creative!” You’ll be forced to type that several times a day and pretty soon you’ll start holding yourself accountable to it. Make the sentence your home screen, your lock screen, a sticker on your laptop, t-shirt you wear to bed. Put a post-it note on your alarm clock or refrigerator. Consider rewriting this full list of nine “creativity clicks” adding the word “My” at the start of each sentence. Then print it out and post the list somewhere you’ll see it all the time.

7. Creativity -- til death do us part (aka, creativity knows no age)

I’m comforted by stories about older people who found their creative voices later in life, a list that includes Julia Child, Samuel Jackson, and Grandma Moses, who didn't start painting ‘til she was in her 70’s. The statement “I’m too old to…” has no place in our creative pursuits. If not now, when?

8. Creativity appears in the different.

Want to jump start your creativity? Do something new. It doesn’t have to be a giant new activity, small is ok too. It’s more a mindset, than a specific action. Always turn right at this intersection? Turn left. Always drink a latte? Try a macchiato. Always go the gym Saturday mornings? Try the farmers market. Creativity is about new discoveries, new approaches, new thinking, and we simply aren’t as likely to find something new or think something new while doing something old.

A book I have read and re-read as a sort of creative touchstone for this is The Artists Way by Julia Cameron. Highly recommended. For a tiny taste of her philosophy, follow her suggestion to take yourself on an “Artist Date”. An Artist Date is a “once-weekly, festive, solo expedition to explore something that interests you… ask yourself, “what sounds fun?” — and then allow yourself to try it.” This is decidedly not about doing something specifically creative. It’s about doing something different, that you’re drawn to. Consistent willingness to try something new is a hallmark of most creative people.

9. Creativity grows in a willingness to build comfort with discomfort.

Here’s how creativity gets squashed: Imagine you are 14 years old. A visiting aunt wants to go out for Indian food. You say, “Hey, I’ve never had Indian food. I wonder if I’ll like it. Let’s go.” And off you go. Fast-forward some number of years to adulthood. Another aunt is visiting and wants to go out for Indian food. You say, “Yeah, I tried that when I was 14 and didn’t like it. Can we go for Mexican instead? I know I like Mexican food.” And off you go. Of course Indian food is not squashing your creativity, it’s your lack of willingness to have an experience without a guaranteed positive outcome. With each passing year we’re encouraged to make decisions about what we like and to choose to do those things more often. But this path is awful for our creative growth. If life becomes a consistent push to do what we know we will like, then our scope of experiences will grow smaller, not bigger. New experiences build a comfort with discomfort; key for creativity.

Consider this “part 1” of the “creativity clicks” thoughts.

I started to write a few more, but this post is plenty long already.

More to come…