Creativity flourishes somewhere between disciplined action and mindful inaction. 

The ‘creative practice’, or even simply ‘creativity’ can seem like an abstract and elusive idea. We know it has something to do with letting ourselves create. We know it’s something about releasing the chains of limited, rigid thinking and approaching instead from some sort of childlike zone of curiosity and play. 

Alongside all the books and programmes and podcasts on the subject, how does developing your creative practice and nurturing your creativity look in a practical sense?

Firstly I must say that it is, of course, individual.

The below is an insight I’ve discovered that might hopefully benefit others too.

The conclusion I’ve come to is that:

 

Creativity flourishes somewhere between disciplined action and mindful inaction. 

 

I’ve read a lot of books talking about the ‘doing’ involved in creative production, and many others talking about creativity as more of an approach to life and state of mind. While meeting many apparent contradictions, I realised that both action and inaction are indispensable to creative practice. 

Focusing solely on a single task/brief without giving yourself any headspace away from the subject will drive you mad. Needless to say, procrastinating the ‘doing’ and only letting the work live in your head will drive more than just you mad. 

For me, a disciplined practice of the two has been the contradictory challenge. 

 

Disciplined Action:

 

Procrastination threatens us all, but I believe it has a particular threat towards creatives who seek to produce great work every time. If I produce nothing, at least I produce nothing bad, I used to think. ‘The Artist’s Way’ (1) by Julia Cameron launched me into a mindset that you have to start where you are and put pen to paper. It is so easy to fill our schedule with everything but the task we’ve been putting off, but we need to get over the dreaded fear of the blank page by simply writing on it.

Write anything. Doodle something. Any thoughts that come to mind, put them on the page. Even the wild, wacky, seemingly unrelated ideas take up space there - while they may not make sense now, they could be the big idea later.

Cameron’s famous Morning Pages are a great way to get into this practice; first thing when you wake up, you write 3 pages of a stream of consciousness. When I’ve done this, I’ve found my days a lot lighter, my mind freer to be filled up with new ideas. The biggest takeaway from that book is to 

 

“avoid the first think”

 

Imagine all the creative ideas that never made it to this world because the artist was too afraid to scribble the rough beginnings.

An affirmation by Steven Pressfield in his book, ‘The War of Art’ (2), is one I will certainly remind myself of time and time again -

 

“I will sit down and do my work” 

 

Something I’ve found extremely useful is to set a timer, say 20 or 40 minute chunks, of focused work. As someone who operates best under pressure, this has been hugely effective in overcoming procrastination.

On top of confronting that fear of the blank page with ‘Morning Pages’ or other similar writing exercises to loosen the reigns, I’ve tried a long list of practices these last few months, including (but not limited to) going on a ‘colour walk’, looking up, then looking further up, starting collections of random things, listening to the top songs of other countries, living other people’s days, drawing what I’d usually photograph, and doing things that scared me. 

The above exercises may seem random and with questionable impact but the principle idea was to ensure I actively did something different every week to push me out of my routine. While all relatively simple and achievable, these exercises kept me from becoming stagnant and close minded, which are poison to creativity. 

 

Mindful Inaction:

 

Simultaneously, we need to give up control in creativity to some extent. After some time spent actively tackling the fear of perfectionism, we need to allow ourselves the chance to digest all the inputs we’ve dutifully gathered. 

There comes a time for stillness.

Things we notice can inspire our work in surprising ways. Noticing is simple, but something that’s becoming increasingly difficult in the distracted world we live in. Rob Walker in ‘The Art of Noticing’ (3) encourages paying attention to what we pay attention to, because 

 

“paying attention is the only thing that guarantees insight”

 

So, while it may seem nonsensical to start noticing how many bikes you see around the city, or see how long it takes you to count to 100 using numbers you see dotted around the urban landscape, or spend 10 minutes contemplating a single painting, attuning our eyes to focus is incredibly helpful. It puts us in a heightened awareness state, where boundless ideas are more welcome.

Then, something many of us, myself included, try to escape from - boredom - a sensation seldom felt in our busy and tracked lifestyles. Modern ‘grind’ culture has nudged us to fill every available time slot with ‘productive’ acts.  However, boredom can be paradoxically productive. This doesn’t mean sitting and reading a relaxing book. It means putting a halt to all inputs, for a period. Let yourself be bored.

One interesting exercise from ‘The Artist’s Way’ is to go somewhere quiet and experience the silence. I don’t know about you, but I had never intentionally gone somewhere with the sole purpose of being quiet, in the hope of becoming bored. I sat in a quiet church and just enjoyed being there, experiencing the scent and studying the architecture that surrounded me. A number of other great exercises on this are found in ‘The Art of Noticing’ by Rob Walker (3).

The legendary Rick Rubin (4) in ‘The Creative Act’ advises not to look for ideas, but instead to make space for them. When we create space in our mind, it creates a vacuum, and we will naturally seek out new ideas and inspiration. 

Oftentimes it’s when I force myself not to think of an idea or a brief that the perfect idea comes along, and this wouldn’t have happened without sitting still and just letting myself be.

 

I have spoken of a number of contradictions which cannot be escaped from because the reality is, achieving creative magic is paradoxical. ​​​​​​​