Creativity: 6 Surprising Ways to Enhance Your Creative Flow
There remains a perpetual stereotype that creativity is reserved for those who are born with it – that mysterious X-factor that allows for an extra level of perception, expression and connection of ideas.
The creative genius who woke up one day and threw up an award-winning novel, or was struck like lightning by the muse and painted for 80 hours in a row. We see these gifted, mysterious people represented in popular culture all the time.
And though those of us who couldn’t string a musical harmony together if our lives depended on it may find this stereotype comforting, science does not agree. Although there are probably genetic components to creativity, as there are with most things connected to our individual personalities, there is a lot of evidence that we can develop our creativity, too.
Here are 6 ways we can nurture and enhance our creative flow:
1. As I write this, I’m listening to Bach. One study in 2017 found that participants who listened to happy, classical music were more creative in divergent creativity tasks than those who did the job in silence. Even though I wrote about the value of silence in this week’s newsletter, it’s interesting to consider how our choice of sensory experience can influence our creative flow.
2. Similarly, a 2015 survey of Danish creative professionals found that sound isn’t the only influential sense over our creativity. It found that working in nature enhanced creativity. Perhaps if you’re feeling blocked, you could try working out in your yard or at the park for the afternoon.
3. Playing video games has been – to my surprise – connected to creative flow as well. One study assessed close to 500 pre-teen kids and found that the more they played video games, the more creative they were in other tasks. This finding didn’t carry over to kids who used the internet or phone a lot. It was video-game specific and translated to some creativity in tasks like writing and drawing.
4. Boredom is the doorway to creative liberation. My favourite study in this bunch got people to do a super tedious task before attempting a creative one. Those who had to copy phone numbers from a phone directory for fifteen minutes beforehand came up with more creative answers in the task than those who didn’t.
I think we could use this by doing some house chores before sitting down to engage with a creative task, or going for a long drive or walk, leaving the mind to wander in the background of monotony.
(By the by, if you’re interested in the power of boredom – and it is powerful – check out the book Bored and Brilliant by Manoush Zomorodi.)
5. Fiction can get your creative fire burning. Being in Learning and Development, I engage a lot with people interested in the self-development space. In that space, we tend to flock to non-fiction, how-tos and the like. And while non-fiction is a great genre, and can be a powerful source of knowledge, I think sometimes it detracts people from other books. Good books. Novels.
Research suggests that nestling in with a novel is not only relaxing but also increases your imagination and can improve brain functioning. I like to do this as part of my wind-down routine before bed. If you can incorporate some time for reading creative works of fiction into your schedule, I highly recommend it. Not only does the research advocate it for enhancing creativity, but it’s also a nice way to chill out and zone out from the rest of the world.
There’s nothing like getting lost in a really good book.
6. Practice. Some kinds of creativity have been shown to improve through practice, and like any skill, creative pursuits require actually… well, doing them. As Stephen King says, if you want to be a writer, you must read a lot and write a lot. As E. B. White said, “A writer who waits for ideal conditions under which to work will die without putting a word on paper.”
Do you have any routines or strategies that you’ve found prompt your creativity? I’d love to hear about them!
Sonia
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Many of the ideas discussed in this piece were talked about in my podcast episode about creativity. For the full episode, “Is Creativity for the Tortured Soul?”, check it out on Spotify or Apple Podcasts (Links are on the podcast page).