Thought Leadership

Humans are unique mammals for our creativity and knack for storytelling. However, we also overthink and ruminate which is a significant weakness of the species, crippling for many. Overcome the story you tell yourself, allow for an environment that is juicy for ideas and you too can be truly creative.

We have only been writing in a useful form for a few thousand years and spoken language only about 200,000 years. Overthinking is a human trait generally triggered by the stress hormone, cortisol. When life is stressful, our brains start to focus on how much more stressful it could be and to strategise for the possible worst-case scenarios. In my humble opinion, overthinking is the biggest waste of human energy and creative potential since the investigation into Milli Vanilli.

It is common for people to consider themselves as not creative or to tell themselves that story. I ran an ad agency for 20 years and would hear from my clients over and over that they didn't have a 'creative bone in their body'. But most people find creativity intimidating and it probably stems from a lame drawing they did when they were eight and someone told them so.

Somewhere along the line humans bought into the idea that creativity primarily equals artistic output. I went to art school and I couldn't draw to save my life. But creativity is so much more than the fine arts. Creativity includes innovation, disruption of norms, interesting couplings, and the solving of problems. Even pulling together a killer outfit is creative or cooking from only the ingredients you have in the pantry.

So, if you have told yourself that you are not creative, that's just a story. Stop that.

Researchers have defined creativity as the production of something both novel and useful in the right setting. Anyone can be creative: it's just an output that is novel and useful and you can do it too, if you interrupt your overthinking and the story you are telling yourself.

Ask a neuroscientist for an explanation on which parts of the brain drive creativity and you will receive a complicated answer. The short answer is: it's a coordinated effort between several parts of the brain overlaid with human emotions. To be creative you need attention, imagination and information. These functions hold hands at stages of the creative process and go it alone in others.

Emotion, however, is an important addition to the mix. If you feel good when you create you will do it again and again. If a blank page scares you like a bear in the woods you will simply avoid it. And if a school teacher told you that your handwriting is rubbish, you will never forget it.

Humans are rotten at disassociating themselves from criticism but according to the research on this, a lack of concern for criticism is crucial to being creative. Some of the most successful creatives in the world are people who simply did not care what others think including Steve Jobs, Pablo Picasso and Thomas Edison.

On the flip side, if you catch yourself obliterating the creativity of others, give yourself an uppercut. Ideas are for percolating not detonating. Learn to twirl a baton, don't piss on someone else's parade.

Let's not forget our mate dopamine—the hormone which makes you sizzle like it should be illegal. When you complete something satisfying, it's dopamine that makes you go back for more. Block the critics from your life and you will smooth the way for more of this sizzle.

Once you have the haters in the bin, how do you create an environment for juicy thinking? I've often wondered why I have my best ideas in the shower or when I am on a long walk with my dog—both inconvenient times to take notes—so I looked it up.

When you step into the shower or out of the house, you disconnect from demanding inputs like your phone and other people. Your brain has a chance to focus on the senses and do very little. In that silence, you give your brain a chance to make creative connections between pieces of information you already know. Since learning that gem I have added a sign to my shower door which says EPIPHANY INCUBATOR.

Furthermore, events that make us feel relaxed and fabulous increase our dopamine flow. Dopamine + distraction from the usual chaos = creative brain wanderings. Disconnect more often and take longer showers.

Here's a great example of connecting information you already know into a genius idea. In the 1950s a bloke named John patented the airbag idea after a car accident involving his daughter coupled with his experience repairing torpedoes in World War II. He may or may not have had this idea in the shower but it has been suggested he had the idea on a long drive. These two pieces of information came together as a creative idea that would revolutionise car safety.

So, there we have it. To unleash your innate creativity as a human with a complex brain and emotions to boot, take these five steps:

1. Interrupt overthinking—it gets you absolutely nowhere at all, really fast
2. Park all concern for criticism in the bin with the lid on and stomp on the bin
3. Make time to disconnect from the feed, from screens and people, from all the usual attention grabbers
4. Go for long walks and take extra long showers
5. Go rogue, get bored, buy a notebook, and have fun.