If you have been reading my blog for any span of time, you will know that I have a particular interest in stories that show, to paraphrase Edison, Creativity is 1% inspiration and 99% perspiration.
Recently, Pacific Standard had an article where researchers found that persistence is an important factor in achieving a creative break through.
“Researchers report that people consistently underestimate how many creative ideas they can come up with if they continue to work on a problem, rather than giving up in the wake of mediocre initial results.”
The article references two similar experiments where people were asked to brain storm ideas, had a break and were asked to brain storm more ideas. During the break, the participants were asked how many ideas they would come up with in the second brainstorming session. In both cases, the participants underestimated how many ideas they would come up with.
The most interesting thing was that in one case, the participants were all professional sketch comedy performers at a sketch comedy festival.
Remember, this is the sort of thing these people do for a living. And yet they, too, significantly underestimated the number of ideas they would come up with on their second attempt. “This speaks to the robustness of persistence undervaluation,” the researchers write, “and demonstrates that it is not limited to novices in novel domains.”
In a study that didn’t involve the sketch performers, outside evaluators rated the ideas that came from the post-break session as “significantly more original” than those that came from the first session.
Apparently the reason why people underestimate how creative they will be is due to a sense of doubt generated by their initial attempt. Perhaps one of the most important elements in obtaining creative success is a supportive, but firm friend who tells you to get your butt back in there and try again.
Creative thought is a trial-and-error process that generally produces a series of failed associations before a creative solution emerges,” the researchers note. It’s often difficult to know when you’re nearing a breakthrough; that “Aha!” moment may occur immediately following a period of deep frustration.
[…]
…As Thomas Edison said: “Our greatest weakness lies in giving up. The most certain way to succeed is always to try just one more time.”
Again we come back to the need to allow for failures in the process of pursuing creativity.
Nice post. Creativity doesn’t come down from the heavens, it come out of hard work. Reminded me of what Chuck Close thinks about an artist’s work ethics: http://www.brainpickings.org/2012/12/27/chuck-close-on-creativity/
Just saw this the other day:
“Stephen Colbert:
“Our first night professionally onstage,” he said, the longtime Second City director Jeff Michalski told them that the most important lesson he could pass on to them was this: “You have to learn to love the bomb.”
“It took me a long time to really understand what that meant,” Colbert said. “It wasn’t ‘Don’t worry, you’ll get it next time.’ It wasn’t ‘Laugh it off.’ No, it means what it says. You gotta learn to love when you’re failing.… The embracing of that, the discomfort of failing in front of an audience, leads you to penetrate through the fear that blinds you. Fear is the mind killer.””