Recently, life got in the way of my creativity. I first noticed it after I accepted a new job offer. All of a sudden, my brainpower switched gears. Instead of being its meandering self, it migrated to task management. Suddenly, creativity was replaced by more tangible tasks like scheduling, organizing, and making decisions. The whole experience became puzzling. I figured it would last a couple of days. It didn’t. Days turned to weeks and I could not find any signs of the change relenting.
Suddenly, I felt the block lift. I was home alone and I was looking for something to do during the coronavirus quarantine. Out of boredom, I pulled out the only non-electronic activity I had with me. Luckily, as I packed up things for a month in Nashville, I threw in a puzzle I received as a Christmas gift. Puzzling, it seems, was the key to unlocking the block.
I grabbed my portable stereo and fired up my iPod (yes, I still have both of these things). I pulled up a playlist with songs last played somewhere prior to 2018. Next, I cleared off the table, pulled out the puzzle box, and dumped the pieces onto the table. I was ready to roll.
As my fingers felt over those shiny pieces, my mind began to move to a different place. Flipping the pieces, memorizing the colors, and listening to music pushed my brain out of the haze. Even as I grouped edge pieces and organized others into color groups, I felt the pressure release. My mind regained the space and time to meander. As I became engrossed in puzzling, I realized several things that I should have noticed all along.
3 Creative Block Busters
The puzzling process illuminated what I had been missing. I couldn’t think my way out of a creative block. I had to let my subconscious help me through it. Puzzling paused the logical side of my brain. Meanwhile, my left brain lit up. As I worked on that puzzle, I started to wonder why.
The simple act of fitting pieces together triggered the creative energy to return to my brain. As I continued puzzling, I contemplated the activities that were driving the change. I quickly realized there were three things fueling my return to creativity.
Grouping
The simple process of organizing the puzzle pieces aroused my curiosity. Separating pieces into the edge and middle pieces acts as my first step. Then, I start to group pieces by color. The subtle nuances of color trigger my brain to heighten its perceptive capabilities. Discerning between lime and chartreuse green stimulates the creative side of my brain.
Comparing and grouping pieces based on their shapes, colors, or other characteristics is a perfect way to jump-start the creative process, The process lights up different parts of the brain, especially compared to thinking logically and rationally. The comparisons are limitless. Plus, they are not necessarily leading to a paring down or an ultimate decision. The grouping process opens up opportunities instead of closing it down.
How can you use grouping to spark creativity in your life? The possibilities are endless for using this concept. For one, try randomly taking several different food types and putting them together on the table. Start brainstorming how they can be combined or complemented to create different meals. Experiment with your favorite combination. You can try a similar method with exercises, whether it is weights, cardio, or whatever. Every task you perform is composed of multiple elements. Try taking those elements and grouping them differently. It does not matter whether they are grouped in similar or dissimilar patterns. The activity itself drives the creative process. Change the grouping to creatively change the experience.
Free Association
Our brain processes and stores a great deal of information. Much more than we imagine. Focusing on a specific piece to fit a specific spot forces my brain into a corner. I lose access to all of the information I have stored.
Conversely, when I stop looking for that one piece and, instead, I survey the whole table, free association takes place. All of that stored information is allowed to roam free. Suddenly, I stumble across pieces that my brain amazingly remembers where to find its match. I don’t understand how it works. My brain has stored that information but it cannot access it when I focused on one spot. When I remove that constraint, opportunities open up for me all over the table.
Example
Think of it this way: When you are looking for your keys, you are forcing information through your brain in a certain way. That strategy does not always work for me. When it doesn’t, I find it helpful to sit down and focus on something else. Inevitably, my brain will free associate the stored information and trigger me to remember where I left that thing for which I had been searching.
How does this help the creative process? I typically access my brain and try to pull things out of it. Creativity does not work well with the pull approach. Instead, I have much better results when I allow my brain to push thoughts and ideas out to me. These ideas reveal things that matter to me that I have stored for future use. These are my best ideas! Just like magically finding that piece you looked for 30 minutes earlier, I am always amazed when a fantastic idea seeps out for me to associate with my current thinking.
Find time to give your brain a break. Whether its meditation or finding solace in nature, change the polarity. Instead of constantly pulling information out, try to let your brain push ideas out into your conscious thoughts. When I stop pulling information out and I give my brain room to breathe, it is amazing what starts to reveal itself.
Moving On
When I am puzzling, I keep an imaginary timer in my head. If I hunt for a specific piece for too long, I force myself to stop and move in a different direction. The new direction could involve jumping into a different grouping exercise or practicing free association or I might try something else. My reason is to not get stuck. If I search for something too long, my brain obsesses until it finds the item or gets frustrated looking for it.
When I move on, I do not necessarily take my whole brain with me. In fact, although I may switch tasks, my brain is still working on the initial problem in the background. In fact, research shows people taking a break from a problem ended up making a statistically better decision than people that just stayed at it until they solved the problem. Why? Their brains were afforded more time to consider all of the options and to optimize their solution. That’s worth considering.
Next time you start working on a problem, give yourself a set amount of time to reach a solution. If the time expires and you have not resolved the situation, move on. Let your brain continue to consider the situation, but move on to a different task. Depending on the complexity of what you are working on, come back to it later in the day or give it a day or two. A nap or a good night’s rest are also proven to improve problem-solving skills.
Puzzling Adventures
I love to think about things differently and creatively. It’s an important part of me and critical to my mental health. Being in a creative funk became a total bummer for me. I tried not to get hung up on it but it did wear on my mental state. As you can imagine, I was totally excited to feel the creativity breathe itself back into my mind.
This experience taught me an important lesson. Sometimes, it takes work to be creative. My brain, apparently, needs a push at times to wander. It’s not just going to go out wandering on its own. Mental fitness shares similarities with physical fitness. Just as I need to push my body to exercise, I need to push my brain to work out. Mental fitness does not happen without challenge and effort.
On certain days, exercise happens as I go through my daily routine. Other times, I need to push myself to get outside or head to the gym. The same principle holds for my brain. When I get into a block situation, I need to take a firmer and more disciplined approach. starting with the ideas I highlighted here. I hope these ideas entice you to reimagine your approach. You are worth it!
