{"id":194,"date":"2013-02-21T15:01:35","date_gmt":"2013-02-21T20:01:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/anthonyandme.com\/?p=194"},"modified":"2013-02-26T12:08:48","modified_gmt":"2013-02-26T17:08:48","slug":"being-creative","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/anthonyandme.com\/?p=194","title":{"rendered":"Being Creative"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><script type=\"text\/javascript\">\/\/ <![CDATA[\ngoogle_ad_client = \"ca-pub-0229614676767015\"; \/* A&amp;M4 - Smaller Banner *\/ google_ad_slot = \"2954666221\"; google_ad_width = 468; google_ad_height = 60;\n\/\/ ]]><\/script><br \/>\n<script type=\"text\/javascript\" src=\"http:\/\/pagead2.googlesyndication.com\/pagead\/show_ads.js\">\/\/ <![CDATA[\n\n\/\/ ]]><\/script><br \/>\nI\u2019m taking the rest of the day to work on my book proposal. My brother Ryan recently shared with me an interesting <a href=\"http:\/\/www.brainpickings.org\/index.php\/2012\/04\/12\/john-cleese-on-creativity-1991\/\" target=\"_blank\">video of the English actor John Cleese<\/a> talking about how to unlock your creative juices. It\u2019s about 5 minutes too long in my opinion but the core content is quite good. In a nutshell he claims that creativity is not a talent, rather it\u2019s a way of operating. He focuses on five factors to help us be creative.<\/p>\n<ol start=\"1\">\n<li><b>Space<\/b> \u2013 You have to create some space for yourself away from your everyday demands.\u00a0 That means sealing yourself off.\u00a0 You must make a quiet space for yourself where you will be undisturbed.<\/li>\n<li><b>Time<\/b> \u2013 It\u2019s not enough to create space.\u00a0 You have to create <i>your<\/i> space for <i>yourself<\/i> for a specific period of time.\u00a0 Keep in mind that it\u2019s much easier to do<br \/>\nrivial things that are urgent, than it is to do important things that are not urgent \u2013 like thinking.\u00a0 And, it\u2019s also easier to do little things that we know we <a href=\"https:\/\/anthonyandme.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/02\/creativity2_3936297_lrg.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-195 alignright\" style=\"border: 10px solid black;\" alt=\"creativity2_3936297_lrg\" src=\"https:\/\/anthonyandme.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/02\/creativity2_3936297_lrg.jpg\" width=\"273\" height=\"123\" srcset=\"https:\/\/anthonyandme.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/02\/creativity2_3936297_lrg.jpg 650w, https:\/\/anthonyandme.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/02\/creativity2_3936297_lrg-300x135.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 273px) 100vw, 273px\" \/><\/a>can do rather than starting big things that we are not so sure about.\u00a0 Your mind will start thinking about all of the other things that you could be doing instead of working on your project. He says to just sit there for a little bit recognizing the potential interruptions but just letting them come and go. Your mind will eventually calm <!--more-->down. Since it takes time to quiet the mind and get into the \u201copen mode\u201d, you should allow yourself sufficient time to get your mind open to creative thought \u2013 he suggests about 90 minutes.<\/li>\n<li><b>Time<\/b> \u2013 You read it right, I didn&#8217;t repeat it by accident. He listed <em>Time<\/em> twice. Cleese says that you need to give your mind as long as possible to come up with something original. Don\u2019t go with the first idea that comes if you feel it is not optimal.\u00a0 Play with the problem longer; learning to tolerate the discomfort of pondering and indecision. You\u2019ll almost always come up with something better.\u00a0 Give yourself maximum pondering time, which will lead you to the most creative solution. Perhaps this is another 90 minutes.<\/li>\n<li><b>Confidence <\/b>\u2013 Nothing will stop you from coming up with a creative solution as much as the fear of making a mistake.\u00a0 The very essence of being creative is an openness to anything that may happen \u2013 having the feeling that whatever happens, it\u2019s OK. You wont succeed if you are frightened that moving in some direction will be wrong.<\/li>\n<li><b>Humor <\/b>\u2013 Humor gets us from the closed mode to the open mode quicker than anything else.\u00a0 Humor makes us playful and brings relaxation.\u00a0 It\u2019s more than OK to interject humor into your pondering upon<b>\u00a0<\/b>serious matters.\u00a0 Humor is an essential part of spontaneity and n essential part of the creativity that we need to solve problems \u2013 no matter how serious they may be.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<p>What do you think? Do you have any other tips or tricks for helping create time and openness for creativity?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I\u2019m taking the rest of the day to work on my book proposal. My brother Ryan recently shared with me an interesting video of the English actor John Cleese talking about how to unlock your creative juices. It\u2019s about 5 minutes too long in my opinion but the core content is quite good. In a [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[38],"tags":[103,95,94,98,101,99,96,97,100,102,32],"class_list":["post-194","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-updates-on-reed","tag-john-cleese","tag-creative","tag-creativity","tag-helpful","tag-lessons","tag-strategies","tag-thinking","tag-thought","tag-tips","tag-wisdom","tag-writing"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/anthonyandme.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/194","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/anthonyandme.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/anthonyandme.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/anthonyandme.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/anthonyandme.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=194"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"https:\/\/anthonyandme.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/194\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":218,"href":"https:\/\/anthonyandme.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/194\/revisions\/218"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/anthonyandme.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=194"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/anthonyandme.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=194"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/anthonyandme.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=194"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}