The habit of being creative
By: Tomás Maia
Tags: Writing, Personal Development, Habit Building, Creativity, Life Lessons

I find it very amusing, as a social experiment, to observe people closely in January. Am I a stalker? Kind of, but that’s not the point.

From the days that surround new year’s eve, you can feel a positive agitation in the air; as the year comes to an end, we are all eager to start a “new” life, that will begin in the moment the clock turns midnight.

The infamous new year’s resolutions take place around this time — we set out huge unrealistic goals that will move us towards the person we want to become. The thing is: there is a gap between our current skillset and the industriousness we need to accomplish those goals. Therefore, it is pretty damn obvious (and blinding, at the same time) that we won’t be able to reach our desired “new” life just be listing down our aspirations. I’m completely conscious of this inherent flaw, yet I always fall down the same old trap.

It might be clear to you now why this is so amusing to me. It becomes much easier to deal with the frustration of having my high expectations destroyed if this feeling is shared with as many people as possible. And yes, I’m aware, and have accepted, the high level of sadism involved.

It is truly amazing how an arbitrary date, fabricated by human’s imagination, has such a powerful impact.

Does this mean we are incapable of self actualising to a better version of ourselves? Absolutely not. We just have to do it with a more realistic, slowly, progressive approach.

One of my most recent “eureka” moments was realising that even creativity is a habit.

I’ve always considered artistic pursuits a disruption of routine; swimming in a chaotic ocean of ideas. Maybe my viewpoint has been influenced by pop culture’s romanticized exposure, or maybe by the fact that I’ve never contacted with high successful content creators. Nonetheless, it always seemed strange to fit discipline in the same box as creativity.

Turns out I couldn’t be more wrong.

Approximately two months ago, I made the decision that I wanted to work on my “creative calling”, as Chase Jarvis describes it. Starting this summer, I found myself going through an identity loss fase; as my university degree was coming to the end, I had no idea what I wanted to do in the future — and all possible paths seemed too boring. Considering that work takes up the majority of our lives, I reject the option to resign: so I focused on finding the best trade-off between fun and pay check.

Throughout the course of this journey, I stumbled upon Chase Jarvis new book (can you guess the name of it?). I felt an immediate reconnection with my inner child; it was exactly what I was looking for. Of course it was. I have always had the most fun when I was immersed in creative projects with friends, such as inventing elaborate bicycle games, making amateur films or over-complicating collective birthday presents. This was it. My goal: to become a creator.

Not knowing where to start, I began to deep dive in the library — yes, the internet. The more interviews I watched, the more content I absorbed, the more people I explored, the clearer this pattern began to form.

The “genius” creators we see from a galaxy of distance away are not that different from us. Perfect ideas don’t just pop in their heads all the time. Instead, they are ruthlessly disciplined with their creative practice, like an olympic athlete is with his training. They don’t wait for inspiration to strike, nor are they brilliant all the time; they just go to work. Despite being on a bad day or not feeling creative, they still manage to write, film and edit. All the great ideas were once a shitty draft — but they allow it.

Therefore, creativity is not a trait, but a habit.

I knew I had to change my approach with resolutions, starting this year. But how could I build a habit? The amount of information out there is insane — by the way, the 21 days streak is a debunked myth.

On this search, I came across a really interesting podcast episode on Dave Kadavy’s show “Love your work” that taught me about a concept called tiny habits, invented by the behavioural scientist BJ Fogg.

Let’s start with the definition of habit: “automatised behaviour”. It means that in order to transform a behaviour into a habit, we have to make it part of our subconscious; a system that works regardless of consciousness. In order to make this shift, we have to follow three simple steps, which I’ll illustrate with my example:

Set an aspiration (the more specific, the better)

Becoming a writer.

2. List out all different behaviours/set of behaviours that will accomplish that goal

Enrolling on a degree

Taking on masterclasses/online courses

Reading books on writing

Writing a book

Writing a screenplay

Having a blog

Writing everyday

3. Choose behaviours that checks these three characteristics:

Effectiveness (actually moving towards the goal)

Low difficulty (not too hard)

You want to do (best for you)

I chose the following behaviour to implement in my life: writing 100 words everyday. Independently of mood, flow or quality, I have to accomplish it. It’s so easy that I don’t have a panic attack in front of a blank page, yet it compounds over time…into a blog, book, screenplay.

As Fogg said, habits can be compared to plants: at first, you just need the roots to grow, with a lot of care and feeding; then it will naturally flourish.

I challenge you to do the same. Whether your resolution was a creative one or not, break it down in a tiny behaviour that you can manage to execute consistently.

Your resolution may still currently be a dream, but your competence will slowly rise to the point it makes it a reality.

The gap will automatically close.