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I stumbled across this really fascinating article on the creative process over at the Times which explains the psychology behind the creative process.

The article is actually an interview with Washington University psychologist R. Keith Sawyer, who is a leader in the field of studying creativity. In it, he shares some valuable insights that all creative people and people who want to be more creative should be aware of.

Here are the basic points of the interview:

• Everyone Can Do It – I think this is probably the most important thing to mention, which is that creativity is not some mysterious ability that only certain people are blessed with. Rather, it is process, a set of habits that anyone can adopt and be more creative as a result. Sawyer has this to say:
  

  Take risks, and expect to make lots of mistakes, because creativity is a numbers game. Work hard, and take frequent breaks, but stay with it over time. Do what you love, because creative breakthroughs take years of hard work. 

• Collaboration Is Key - Collaboration with other people is extremely important. By collaborating with another person, you have someone to bounce ideas off of, and you have someone with a different outlook and a different set of experiences to help build your ideas.
• Learn To Fail - Creative people have lots of ideas, many of them bad. Like Sawyer mentions in the quote from the first point, creativity is a numbers game. If you have enough ideas, it’s inevitable that one of them will be good. This is part of why collaboration is so important, because when you have someone to share ideas with, you get a whole new set of experiences that can potentially make your idea in to something great.
• There Are No Shortcuts - Sawyer mentions that a lot of his and other creativity psychologist’s research has gone in to studying how those ‘lightbulb’ moments come about, and what they’ve found is that even when people don’t realize it, they were gradually building up to their creative moment. Creativity, then, is a process rather than a moment of pure insight. Even if you don’t realize it, in the background your brain is constantly sorting through ideas, making connections, and building up to that one moment of creativity. So don’t wait around expecting for that one creative spark to come along, because it’s not going to happen. Instead, start learning about ideas, start combining ideas, start bouncing ideas off other people to get feedback, and then you’ll have breakthroughs of your own.

I think creativity is one of those areas where psychology is invaluable for shedding light on something that a lot of people find fairly mysterious. Creativity is not something that some people are just blessed with, it’s a set of beliefs and behaviors that ANYONE can adopt and benefit from. If you ever dreamed of being creative but thought it was simply something you weren’t good at, I think the research here shows that anyone can be creative if the willpower is there.

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