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To Be More Creative, Lead with Curiosity
Quick Download: I’ve been seeing a lot of formulas lately for how to be creative, but I think they leave out a crucial initial step: Following curiosity.
The Creative Question
I read a lot about creativity and the neuroscience behind it. There have been books upon books written about how people connect to their creativity, studies of geniuses and how they create masterworks, and steps that plebes like me can take to harness more creativity in our every day lives.
This week, I received James Clear’s newsletter (which is fantastic, btw) and one of his three tips for the week was outlining the creative process. His version is:
- Discover — Read a lot. Observe the world. Notice.
- Collect — Immediately record anything that strikes you.
- Generate — Build on your notes to brainstorm lots of ideas.
- Combine — Connect previously unconnected ideas.
- Refine — Edit, edit, edit. Select the best.
It’s a great general list (although “read a lot” is a time-consuming #1, lol), but I think it’s missing a fundamental element that is at the heart of creativity: following our natural impulses and interests and pursuing what makes us curious.
Starting at the Beginning
For a lot of folks “being creative” becomes a task item like “getting in shape”, but it doesn’t quite work that way.
Getting in shape has a clearly defined end point (losing 5 lbs, going down a pant size, etc.), but creativity’s end point is usually “come up with something new”, which is far more nebulous and not suited to a structured 1–5 prescriptive list.
If you read about any major discovery, there is usually the earth-shattering moment preceded by years or decades of research, study, testing, and failure. People see the “aha!” instant and think “Wow, Archimedes just hopped into a bathtub and and discovered displacement. Maybe I need a better bathtub...” Others use it as a crutch to say, “I’m not creative. I only have a shower.”
People go to a list like Clear’s and think “Okay, discover. I can do that. I’ll go read stuff and buy a bigger tub.” But the “read…
