Tag: #creativity

Overthinking Worriers Are Probably Creative Geniuses

How many hours per day do you think? I never thought about that. So let me get this straight. You’re thinking all the time, and yet, you never realize how much time you spend thinking. That sounds like an addiction to me. I know, because I’m addicted to thinking too.

I am constantly overthinking things, whether it be focusing on irrelevant details, over complicating problems, psyching myself out, or getting overwhelmed by too many thoughts. It’s something I know a lot of people deal with, seemingly more in this generation than most, and it’s an interesting phenomenon. I can’t say exactly why I tend to overthink things (keep in mind I’m not a psychologist), but if I had to guess, I would say that it ties into the high expectations created by society and myself to be perfect, resulting in an unrealistic perfectionist attitude when approaching problems. I constantly have to remind myself that I’m focusing on the wrong parts of a problem and wasting time considering things that have little to no difference in my life in some futile search to be perfect. This problem of overthinking is most noticeable when I attempt to create art. Whether it be writing, drawing, making music, or even doodling, I always hit the brick wall of perfectionism. 

Overthinking can be one of the most frustrating, debilitating habits one can develop. Besides putting you through undue amounts of stress, overthinking can put your life on hold by preventing you from succeeding at work, damaging your relationships, and keeping you from chasing your dreams. It can throw your sleep patterns out of whack, cause you to stress-eat, and hold you back from appreciating your life for the gift that it is.

Much of the time, when we are overthinking, we are engaging in a destructive thought process that leads to unfavorable outcomes.

The “critical inner voice” in our heads that hones in on the negative aspects of a situation. This “voice” is like a sadistic coach that feeds us a ceaseless stream of criticism and undermines our goals. It’s that thought that pops up when we are about to go on a job interview: ‘You’ll never get this. You’re going to embarrass yourself. Just look how nervous you are.” It’s the dialogue that plays in your head analyzing your relationship: “Why is she so distant today? I must have said something stupid. She’s losing interest. She probably likes someone else.

So, why do we nurture this internal enemy that feeds us such negative commentary and dreadful advice? The truth is, we are all divided. All of us are split between our real self and our “anti-self.” While our real self is life-affirming, goal-directed and represents our true values and desires, our anti-self is like an internal enemy that is self-denying and self-critical, paranoid and suspicious, both toward ourselves and toward others. Our real self is built from positive life experiences, healthy developmental events and characteristics we witnessed in our parents and early caretakers. Our anti-self is shaped from our negative experiences, harmful events and attitudes we were exposed to early in life. 

Why do we live in our minds when we can just be living our life?  

It’s all about perspective and mindset.  While we’ve been contemplating situations that haven’t even come to fruition , or worrying about where we’ll be in five years, we could be celebrating the present and all the things going right in life.  Take a moment to breathe and think about all the great things in your world, and the things that make you happy: family, friends, children, relationships, vacation….football. The list is endless, but it takes a conscious shift in mindset to realize that what is bringing you down can weigh you down mentally, physically, and emotionally, too if you let it.

If you’re a classic over thinker, you analyze everything that happens in your life. You mull over every decision until you’re exhausted. You even brood about your tendency to brood. People who overthink tend to score high in the neurotic department. Neuroticism is one of the five big personality traits, along with openness, conscientiousness, extraversion and agreeableness. It’s linked to anxiety, fear, moodiness, worry, envy and frustration.

A lot of world-famous problem-solvers and artists were indeed worriers and over thinkers

There are a lot of incredibly creative scientists and artists on that list. If you have a tendency to worry about things to the point of being neurotic, there is a good chance you are a creative genius yourself.

Cheerful, happy-go-lucky people by definition do not brood about problems and so must be at a disadvantage when problem-solving compared to a more neurotic person. It is easy to observe that many geniuses seem to have a brooding, unhappy tendency that hints they are fairly high on the neuroticism spectrum. For example, think of the life stories of Isaac Newton, Charles Darwin, Vincent Van Gogh, etc. Perhaps the link between creativity and neuroticism was summed up most succinctly of all by John Lennon when he said: ‘Genius is pain.’

The overthinking hypothesis also explains the positives of neuroticism. The creativity of Isaac Newton and other neurotics may simply be the result of their tendency to dwell on problems far longer than average people.

Creative Approach.

Long time ago, one of the most influential scientists in history was strolling through a garden when he was struck with a flash of creative brilliance that would change the world.

While standing under the shade of an apple tree, Sir Isaac Newton saw an apple fall to the ground. “Why should that apple always descend perpendicularly to the ground,” Newton wondered. “Why should it not go sideways, or upwards, but constantly to the earth’s center? Assuredly, the reason is, that the earth draws it. There must be a drawing power in matter.” 

And thus, the concept of gravity was born.

The story of the falling apple has become one of the lasting and iconic examples of the creative moment. It is a symbol of the inspired genius that fills your brain during those “eureka moments” when creative conditions are just right. What most people forget, however, is that Newton worked on his ideas about gravity for nearly twenty years.The falling apple was merely the beginning of a train of thought that continued for decades.

Newton isn’t the only one to wrestle with a great idea for years. Creative thinking is a process for all of us. In this article, I’ll share the science of creative thinking, discuss which conditions drive creativity and which ones hinder it, and offer practical tips for becoming more creative.

Creative Thinking: Destiny or Development?

Creative thinking requires our brains to make connections between seemingly unrelated ideas. Is this a skill that we are born with or one that we develop through practice.This is not to say that creativity is 100 percent learned. Genetics do play a role.

All of this to say, claiming that “I’m just not the creative type” is a pretty weak excuse for avoiding creative thinking. Certainly, some people are primed to be more creative than others. However, nearly every person is born with some level of creative skill and the majority of our creative thinking abilities are trainable.

Now that we know creativity is a skill that can be improved.

Growth Mindset

What exactly are these “personality factors” that researchers are referring to when it comes to boosting your creative thinking?

One of the most critical components is how you view your talents internally. More specifically, your creative skills are largely determined by whether you approach the creative process with a fixed mindset or a growth mindset.The basic idea is that when we use a fixed mindset we approach tasks as if our talents and abilities are fixed and unchanging. In a growth mindset, however, we believe that our abilities can be improved with effort and practice. Interestingly, we can easily nudge ourselves in one direction or another based on how we talk about and praise our efforts.

Embarrassment and Creativity

How can we apply the growth mindset to creativity in practical terms? In my experience, it comes down to one thing: the willingness to look bad when pursuing an activity.The growth mindset is focused more on the process than the outcome. This is easy to accept in theory, but very hard to stick to in practice. Most people don’t want to deal with the accompanying embarrassment or shame that is often required to learn a new skill.

The list of mistakes that you can never recover from is very short. I think most of us realize this on some level. We know that our lives will not be destroyed if that book we write doesn’t sell or if we get turned down by a potential date or if we forget someone’s name when we introduce them. It’s not necessarily what comes after the event that worries us. It’s the possibility of looking stupid, feeling humiliated, or dealing with embarrassment along the way that prevents us from getting started at all.

In order to fully embrace the growth mindset and enhance your creativity, you need to be willing to take action in the face of these feelings which so often deter us.

CONCLUSION

Creativity is a process, not an event. It’s not just a eureka moment. You have to work through mental barriers and internal blocks. You have to commit to practicing your craft deliberately. And you have to stick with the process for years, perhaps even decades like Newton did, in order to see your creative genius blossom.

The ideas in this article offer a variety approaches on how to be more creative. The things to always remember is that creativity is a process not an event.