Boring Ways to Get Creative
By: Charlene Annabel
Tags: Creativity, Life Lessons, Self Improvement

Start Doing and Stop Hoping For Inspiration

In Malcolm Gladwell’s book, Outliers, he credited hard work to people’s successes. In 1960, The Beatles were invited to play in Hamburg, Germany, a place which didn’t have rock-and-roll clubs back then. Before they rose to prominence, audiences didn’t care much about what they were listening to.

What made this experience exceptional was the length of time The Beatles played — sets were eight-hours long, and they played every night each week. By the time the world knew who the Beatles were, they’ve played live performances approximately 1,200 times. Within eight years, every album release was a hit.

The myth that doses of inspiration come while you wait around is fictional. Inspiration comes when you do the work. It comes during your work, not before nor after. That said, creative geniuses find the time to be creative. They work harder and longer than anyone hoping that among the hundreds and thousands of work produced, their efforts will pay off.

Indeed, there’s almost a correlation between the originality of one’s work and the time they spend churning it.

Mozart composed 600 pieces of music with 10 of them becoming his greatest masterpieces.

While it’s easy to beat ourselves down for not being able to harness the power of creativity at times, we need to remember that creative minds like The Beatles and Mozart slogged away for a seemingly infinite number of hours only to have a few smashing albums or art pieces take the world stage.

“Inspiration exists, but you have to find it working.” — Pablo Picasso

Be Bored Out Of Your Mind

Take up a piece of blank paper. Enclose yourself in a room with no TV nor any digital device. Sit on a chair for 15 minutes and stare out of your room’s window. Do nothing at all, and you’ll see that this is the best and most boring way to be creative.

Agatha Christie, a renowned detective novelist, once said in a BBC interview, “There’s nothing like boredom to make you write. By the time I was 16 or 17, I’ve written several short stories and one long dreary novel.”

Why is that so?

When we’re bored, two things are happening in our minds. The first is that we have the desire to want to do something, but we don’t want to do anything that’s on offer. Second, boredom fallows our mental capacity.

It’s not in boredom itself that births creativity. It’s the process of being bored that leads to creativity. Because feeling bored is as uncomfortable as it is aversive, we’re inclined to look for something else — landing us a chance at discovering something new.

Well, this all seems easy, but to benefit from this entire process of being bored, we have to put away digital distractions too. Mindlessly scrolling through your Instagram feed would chip away the minutes or hours you could use to leverage on your creative ability.

Borrow Ideas From Creative People

“There is no such thing as a new idea. It is impossible. We simply take a lot of old ideas and put them into a sort of mental kaleidoscope. We give them a turn and they make new and curious combinations.” — Mark Twain

Perhaps the greatest myth buster of all is that creativity is a reinvention. Apple created the iPhone not because it was a new idea plucked from thin air. It was an improved and futuristic version of the flip phones we used to have. Superhero films are a variety of characters with differing abilities, with good superheroes battling against evil villains to save the city from Mayhem. Writers read other writer’s books and try to emulate their writing styles.

The creative process is a remix of the old to come up with a new and novel idea.

In other words, the principle of creativity is merely making older things better.

Look to people whose works you deeply admire and try to imitate, then package them in your ways. However, understanding your voice, styles, and preferences is the first crucial step before differentiating yourself from the rest.

Thank you for reading!