Is Creativity Hard? If So, Why?
There are a few key ingredients that are needed for
creative thinking.
creative thinking.
We've all ran into this issue of having a blank sheet of paper, a pen in your hand, and no clue what to do. Your mind drifts off thinking about tomorrow but you still try to get the pen to touch the paper and watch some magic happen.
Headspace
The best way to get your creative juices flowing is to try not to think. Sounds weird but we limit our natural rhythm in our brain by thinking with our tongue, even when we don't move it. Thinking in English does you no good when it comes to creative thinking. Creativity isn't a speakable language. It's this weird algorithm that mixes up our learned knowledge, experiences, and our own made up ideas into a big soup. Then we use our tweezers to pull out an idea from that soup. If your soup is too thin then sometimes part of an idea falls off but if it's too thick you get overloaded with too many ideas. With the perfect soup you can fish around and pull out an almost perfect idea. Sometimes we analyze the idea but other times we just blurt it out to pick up what pieces we see best.
Weirdly, you find what you're looking for when you stop looking for it.
To get your brain going on something completely unrelated. Go take a hike, walk down the road, or something just to get away from the distractions for a little while. Find your meditation.
Consumption
Most likely your car runs off gasoline. What would happen if you put kerosene in the gas tank? Your car would either run for a short time or not run at all. Now let's relate this to the engine of creativity, your brain. If you spend too much time watching TV, playing on social media, or staring at a wall your brain will start to wither away. Your mind needs good healthy challenges to keep it strong. The brain is made of many "muscles" and when you don't use a muscle you lose it. Learning a new skill can help build new brain "muscles" and even bring back old ones.
One great skill to work on is cooking healthy meals for you and your family. Healthy food is also a great fuel for your creative engine that needs a lot of good clean fuel. That pink thing between your ears uses more energy than any other organ in the human body. In fact, your brain uses 20% of your calorie intake. Don't let people tell you carbohydrates makes you fat. Too much fat makes you fat. Carbohydrates are the fuel your brain runs on. Give your brain mineral rich whole food carbohydrates.
Interaction
Some of us have ran into these spots in our life where we haven't been around very many people in a few weeks and so it's hard for us to interact with others. Being social is important in many different aspects but in the the spirit of creativity it can be a huge help for some. Sometimes we get stuck on an idea or a problem and we can't find the answer easily on our own. You can get some great advise and different viewpoints by collaborating, sharing ideas, and talking about these problems we run into with others like us.