Seven keys to help unlock your own innate creative potential by Dr. Scott Barry Kaufman—a researcher, psychologist and co-author of Wired to Create: Unraveling the Mysteries of the Creative Mind:
DON’T FORCE INSPIRATION.
Sometimes you have a deadline that compels you to be creative, or a task that requires some imaginative elements. But focusing on goal-driven production may backfire. “Inspiration is not something willed. It’s hard to wake up in the morning and say, ‘I’m going to be inspired today.’ The more you try to force it, the less likely you are to start,” says Kaufman. “You need to create a space for people to discover things about themselves.
2. UNDERSTAND THE BIAS.
Whether they’re in elementary school or a corporate office space, people who think and process in unique or creative ways might feel stifled by conforming to traditional means of production output. “We do seem to be biased in most schools and workplaces against individual expression and unique choice,” says Kaufman. “That sort of standardization of behavior is really a killer of creativity.” How can students and nine-to-fivers overcome confining and rigid structures? By trusting in your own intuition when you show enthusiasm or excitement in something new, and then finding some kind of outlet to express it.
3. BREAK BEYOND IQ.
“Standard ways of thinking about intelligence leave out the whole person,” says Kaufman. “They leave out the passions or the values that one holds, the personal goals and dreams that someone has and what they want to achieve, as opposed to imparting a certain task on the person.”
Frank X. Barron, a psychologist who pioneered the study of creativity in the 1960s, broke away from the longtime assumption that intelligence was the essential trait of highly creative people. Scientists now agree with Barron that to understand creativity, you need to look beyond the IQ test. “There’s this traditional notion of intelligence solely comprising cognitive information processing, like we’re robots, our ability to problem-solve abstract information,” says Kaufman. “But I do think that’s a hindrance, because intelligence is more broadly an adaptation to our environments, and the creative thought processes that come into play are so connected to being able to adapt to any environment, not just for abstract information that is derived from your everyday life.”
4. BE OPEN TO NEW EXPERIENCES.
According to Kaufman, you need to create a space where you can discover things about yourself, and that is most
likely to happen when you leave yourself open to new experiences. And what exactly does that mean? At the core it’s “the drive for exploration and curiosity, and the constant temptation to get outside your comfort zone and embrace the unknown,” Kaufman explains. “In your everyday life you could be open to new experience in any moment. Try as best as you can to keep your prior stereotypes and anxieties [to yourself] and try not to impart them onto the world. Try to see things as they truly are—and be curious about everything. Be curious about anything.”
5. EMBRACE OPPOSING FORCES.
Highly creative people tend to welcome paradoxes, melding two seemingly contradictory ideas that lead to greater innovation. “There are a lot of so called dichotomies that aren’t really dichotomies at all,” says Kaufman. For example, when it comes to the creative process, there’s no sharp demarcation between work and play. Other lines blur as well. “People who are really creative are good at trusting and having faith in their intuition but also at being rational in their analysis of whether or not something is correct.” Strength and sensitivity also seem contradictory, but the distinction may not always be so clear. “Creative people tend to have extraordinary sensitivity but also are capable of staying true to their values, even in challenging environments.” Highly creative people have a tendency for post-traumatic growth, an ability to learn from distressing experiences.
6. LET YOUR MIND WANDER . . .
One apparent paradox is the tension between daydreaming and mindfulness, two apparently opposing forces that are both crucial to the creative process. “The distinction between mind wandering as the opposite of ‘good’ thinking is a false dichotomy,” says Kaufman. “A lot of daydreaming and mind wandering—letting the mind go spontaneously where it wants to go—is very conducive to ‘good’ thinking, or at least it can be.”
7. . . . BUT HOME IN.
Meditation and mindfulness techniques can help bring a measure of focus to your daydreaming. “Positive, constructive daydreaming is where you’re thinking through an issue or doing some mental simulations of possible futures,” Kaufman suggests. “That can be very productive. But what isn’t productive is a type of meditation through rumination, which doesn’t seem to be helpful to creativity.” Meditation can help hone the mental muscle to enhance concentration, he adds, but we tend to “focus too much on the ability to concentrate on the outside world” instead of training people to plumb the depths “of their own inner world where there’s so much fertile soil for creativity.”
