There is a famous story about the invention of the Swiffer, which came about not through careful research but from a serendipitous moment of realization. Says inventor Harry West “ I can’t begin to explain why the idea arrived then; I was too grateful to ask too many questions.” “The sheer secrecy of creativity – the difficulty in understanding how it happens, even when it happens to us – means that we often associate breakthroughs with an external force.”1
William James described his own creative process as a “Seething cauldron of ideas, where everything is fizzling and bobbing about in a state of bewildering activity.”
Embarking on a creative journey always begins with a problem. We may feel stumped, unsure, clueless, or blank about what direction to take. We might even feel like we don’t want to go on this journey. The desire to escape to mindless television, a tasty snack, or online shopping may feel like a better alternative. We might believe that this problem is impossible to solve or that we don’t have the skills, brain-power, or talent to solve it. But here is the thing – this means we are on the path to a creative breakthrough. Welcome the frustration, the uncertainty, the doubt. Immerse yourself in the disappointment and the feeling you aren’t the right person for the job. Let it wash through you. Then proceed. This is the place we are naturally at right before the epiphany starts to form.
Trying to force an insight doesn’t work. So your idea that if only you were smarter and talented, it would be easy just isn’t true. Instead, focus on being present with what you are feeling, relax into it, find the fun and humor of your situation, and start the problem-solving journey as an explorer of new lands without a map.
Trust the epiphany will come.
There’s actually a cortical signal that predicts epiphanies. Researcher Mark Beeman “saw a sharp drop in activity in the visual cortex just before the insight appeared as if the sensory area were turning itself off.” He had observed his research partner cover his eyes with his hand when attempting to find an answer to a problem. It occurred to him that the visual cortex was going quiet so that the brain could better focus on its obscure associations “the cortex does this for the same reason we close or cover our eyes when we are trying to think,” Beeman says. When the outside world becomes distracting, the brain automatically blocks it out.2
The irony of seedbops is that it’s often after we stop trying that we sit in the place where we are that the seedbop hits us. For me, ideas and answers come fully formed. They just arrive. I know they are something to be paid attention to. What seemingly is a “mental block” is the ground through which the seedbop shows itself.
How do I make space for these answers, these seedbops to break through? I do something else. I meditate, take a walk, or do some housework. Often when I sit with the problem before bed and sleep on it, I wake up with the answer in the morning. I am morning, so my best work is completed before 2 pm.
Mark Beeman says the drowsy brain is unwound and disorganized, open to all sorts of unconventional ideas. The right hemisphere is also usually active. He recommends staying in bed for a while before you get up to rush. “we do some of our best thinking when we’re half asleep.”3
Because positive moods help us to relax, we focus less on the troubling world and more and more on these remote associations.
The key is finding your best process. It almost always entails just being with uncomfortable feelings, sitting with the chaotic void of not knowing, and letting things percolate until the coffee is brewed. Trust that you will get there even if you don’t see how that is possible. As you go through this process, again and again, you’ll get better at the skill of letting go and trusting you are on the right path.
1 Jonah Lehrer. Imagine: How Creativity Works. Houghton, Mifflin Harcourt, 2012. pg xvi Note: Subsequent to the publishing of this book, Mr. Lehrer was found to have fabricated quotes from Bob Dylan. In my opinion, the information he researched and used in this book still has great value and is replicated in creativity research of other authors. I do not include any Bob Dylan quotes Lehrer wrote.
2 Ibid. 33
3 Tim Harford. Messy: The Power of Disorder to Tranform Our Lives. pg 32
