7 Quick Ways to Boost Your Creativity
Learning December 6th, 2010The following is a guest article by Mark Tyrrell. Â You can find more information and links to his website at the end of the article
My job drives me to be creative. As a hypnotherapist, I’m compelled to devise on-the-spot metaphors, paint pictures in my clients’ minds with the brush of my words, and bring out the best in people in a way accepted by even the most negatively biased.
Whatever you do – from captivating people with your conversation to playing tennis or writing an attention-grasping strap line for your genius product – upping your creative power will make life more fun, exciting, and rewarding. Because creativity isn’t just the jealous preserve of “arty types” meaningfully smoking cigarettes (e cigaretter med nikotin) in Parisian sky-lit studios, reciting Baudelaire whilst painting naked women as cubes. Anything and everything can be done more artfully, from pitching a ball to pitching an idea.
But to be creative on demand at great medical animation – to be reliable in your artfulness and idea production - that is a challenge. For example I call creative the people behind http://www.sproutwatches.com/.
Fortunately, science (which has more than its share of creative geniuses) has something to tell us about how we can reach out, grab, and pull inspiration up close rather than waiting endlessly for it to arrive in its own sweet time. So here are tried-and-tested ways to get you thinking, feeling, and being so far outside of the box you’ll forget ever being in one.
1) Go do something else
Have you ever struggled long and hard to recall someone’s name only to remember it hours later when you weren’t thinking about it? That desperately sought name pops into your mind whilst admiring the view or thinking about your tax return. Why? Because once you’ve primed yourself to work on a problem consciously, your subconscious will be working on it for you even when you’re not consciously thinking about it at all. In fact, that’s when creativity works best; when it springs directly from your subconscious without too much conscious interference.
Research found that when people are given an unrelated task to do after being asked to create a new idea, the ones who give their unconscious minds a chance to work (because they are focusing on something else) show remarkably more creativity than people who just focus on trying to be creative (1). So work on your problem for a while, and then go watch a movie or take a swim and forget about it…consciously.
2) Be spontaneous
Fear of having our ideas rejected or saying something “silly” melts creativity quicker than an ice cube left out to dry in Death Valley. So think about what the opposite of what you “should” do would be. What would be the dumbest idea? This frees you up to shake off the shackles of restrictive thought, have fun and joke around, and maybe just “by accident” make an enormous creative leap.
3) Prime yourself with absurdity
To get more creative, you need to be freed up to make connections and to see patterns – seeing the forest and the tress, not just nose down to the path.
In another study, participants read an absurd short story by Franz Kafka before completing a pattern recognition task (2). Compared with control participants, those who had read the short story showed an enhanced subconscious ability to recognize hidden patterns. So read Alice in Wonderland, The Hobbit, or the mind-altering fantasy of Terry Pratchett before getting to work on your own creative masterpiece.
4) Fast-forward in your mental time machine
Actually, this is a favourite technique of hypnotherapists: “age progression”, in which we hypnotically encourage people to go into the future and then describe how they overcame a particular current difficulty or creative dilemma. I’ve had people describe the most incredible creative solutions, which I’ve then encouraged them to try with amazing results; pure productive creativity.
Researchers (3) asked participants to think about what their lives would be like one year from now. These participants were more insightful and generated more creative solutions to problems than those who were thinking about what their lives would be like tomorrow. You don’t have to delve deeply into hypnosis to get creative; just really focus on imagining that you’re looking back from the future with “hindsight”.
5) Let plants grow fertile thoughts
Having a view of nature from a hospital window promotes more rapid healing; but for our purposes, Japanese psychologists also found that, in study after study, people displayed more creativity in office environments if potted plants were in view – as opposed to, say, just computer monitors.
In another study carried out over eight months, it was found that simply adding plants and flowers to an office increased male employees’ creative ideas by 15% and also encouraged more flexible creative solutions from their female colleagues (4). In yet more research, it’s been found that children behave more creatively when they play in nature.
So either get yourself a great natural view or invest in some potted plants and flowers.
6) Let abstract paintings prime your creative brain
Okay, “modern art” might not be your thing. Maybe you like to know exactly what you’re looking at and be assured that it’s something you couldn’t have done yourself. But it’s also been found that creativity at work goes up with the subliminal effect of abstract art hanging around.
Researchers found that the effect of having “modern paintings” on the walls is to make people more creative – whether they profess an interest in or liking for art or not, and whether or not they even consciously notice those paintings (5). So a bit of Rothko, Picasso, or Pollock may go a long way.
7) Let your bad moods be useful
Next time (heaven forbid) you find yourself in a bad mood, instead of wallowing in a resentful swirl of discontented grumpiness, use the intensity of your mood to generate creative connections. Good moods increase both problem solving and flexible thinking, and are generally seen as more conducive to creativity. But negative emotions also have the power to boost creativity. It seems that an intense emotional state (literally “within reason”) can jolt us off the rails of habitual one-track routine thinking. One study (6) of 161 employees found that creativity increased when both positive and negative emotions were running high.
So, calm contemplation of a problem might not be the best way to get creative. “Clearing the mind” may not be as good as distracting the conscious brain so that the subconscious mind can do its thing, feeling creatively grumpy, or hypnotically time travelling.
And remember, creativity doesn’t spring from tidy-mindedness or trying too hard; sometimes we have to learn to stand aside and let it happen.
This article was written by Mark Tyrrell, who creates all sorts of things on a regular basis, including 5 new hypnosis downloads per month on his main website.
References
(1)Â Â Â Dijksterhuis, A. and Meurs, T. (2006) Where Creativity Resides: The Generative Power of Unconscious Thought. Consciousness and Cognition, 15, pages 135-46.=
(2)Â Â Â Â Proulx (2009)
(3)Â Â Â Â Forster et al. (2004)
(4)Â Â Â This research was conducted by Robert Ulrich from Texas A and M University.
(5)Â Â Â Forster, J., Friedman, R., Butterbach, E.M., and Sassenbach, K. (2005) Automatic Effects of Deviancy Cues on Creative Cognition. European Journal of Social Psychology, 35, pages 345-59.
(6)Â Â Â Â George & Zhou (2007)
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December 7th, 2010 at 1:24 AM
nice positive thoughts there Mark
Sourish
December 7th, 2010 at 8:39 AM
You were reading me, Mark! You really were! LOL!
Great points here, totally easy to do if one puts their heart to it. It takes an open mind and great desire to produce astounding results. If one doesn’t want “just ordinary” outputs, they must be crazy enough to jump and dive. Reminds me so much of the masterpieces throughout the history of mankind. A lot of them were made by “fools”. I call them creators. The real ones gifted with great creativity. Speak of Van Gogh, Mozart, Rodin, even people who made governments strong.
My creativity boosters have been listed above. As I said, you’ve been reading me, Mark. Although I’ve eliminated profiting from bad moods. For them, I do yoga. Mostly. 🙂
December 7th, 2010 at 3:11 PM
Thanks Sourish and Arina I think sometimes to be truly creative you need to risk seeming a little “unorthodox” to others because if you don’t then maybe you’re not creating anything new : )
December 9th, 2010 at 5:09 PM
Hi Mark this is great stuff. I love it when articles use scientific research.
December 9th, 2010 at 9:29 PM
Thanks again Mark for the great article. It’s also great to see other’s comments on which points they align with or what they like about the article. Creativity is a great subject, one I will have to think about revisiting myself.
December 10th, 2010 at 3:47 AM
My pleasure Mike and thanks Stephen.
December 12th, 2010 at 2:10 PM
Hi dear Mike, what a beautiful guest post. I love this because it, in itself, is creative, spontaneous and wild. I just love that. Even right down to embracing our “bad” moods to channel and use as creativity. That is brilliant. I have found that creativity is hidden in the most unlikely places, just waiting to spark to life. This is one of the best articles I’ve read on creativity. Thank you dear friend. And thank you Mark!! Hugs to you both, Robin. 🙂 And have a wonderful holiday season.
December 16th, 2010 at 11:53 AM
You make some great points, Mike. I have always been particularly intrigued about ways I can put my subconscious to productive use. It’s a shame that only 10% of our brain power is ever being used. Anyway we can use the rest of the brain processes to good use should definitely be practiced.
December 23rd, 2010 at 12:32 AM
How about trying to remember some of your earlier childhood memories by looking at photos or revisiting some cartoons, or movies that you enjoyed as a child? I’ve always done that to bring some of the creativity I used to have as a child.
Till then,
Jean
December 23rd, 2010 at 5:53 PM
@Jean – I like that one, childhood memories, YES! Child hood memories often stir up great feeling simply because of the imagination and creativity going on when we were young. Its important to still think that way and to unleash the imagination to be as creative as possible.
@Komodo – I pass on the thanks here to Mark for writing this great article. Anyway, the 10% aspect is actually a very wide generalization about the capability of the human mind and in actuality, some people can use much much more of it. Surprisingly, brain trauma can trigger massive brain remaps where other portions of the brain are used that don’t seem to be otherwise, and often more than previous to the trauma, unfortunately the efficient mapping and wiring between neurons means more than how many brain cells are actually used to control all that. Anyway, that subject would need an article to itself….
@Robin – thanks so much always for your comments and insight to spontaneity and creativity. You are one of the most creative people I know and I credit that to your beautiful imagination and adventurous spirit, which I share with you in this wonderful unfathomable life we each get to live!
December 26th, 2010 at 12:48 AM
Sweet, glad you liked it Mike, by the way Merry Christmas to you and your family!
-Jean