An expansive definition of creativity – and how to get unstuck and start creating

ByLukas

I’ve been thinking and writing and talking an awful lot about creativity lately. Making up for an extended period of being creatively stuck myself!

At the core of getting unstuck was redefining what creation and creativity mean to me. 

Ever since I’ve done that, I’ve started several new projects (including this website, a coffee blog, on top of my language-learning-related projects). I’m also writing a radionovela story for a Spanish language course. And I’m writing drafts for 1-2 new blog posts every day.

More importantly: it doesn’t feel like I’m working so hard. On the contrary: I’m relaxing much more. Everything feels easier. I feel freer, happier, and much more fulfilled.

Getting unstuck and redefining what creativity means can have the same powerful, liberating effect for you, too. And even if you think you don’t need it, creating more might yield incredible benefits in areas where you wouldn’t expect it.

So let’s start by redefining creativity, and then help you get unstuck and start creating more.

My expansive definition of creativity

At the moment, this is what creation (and creativity) means to me. I update this definition a lot, but this is it right now.

To me, creation is giving my perception of the outer world – and how I interpret it in my mind – a way back out. 

Here’s another way of looking at it.

Stimuli from the world around you enter your brain through your senses. They interact with your thoughts, feelings, and past experiences until something new emerges: a creation. A creation that’s uniquely yours, because it emerged from your unique blend of experiences, thoughts, and feelings.

This is my current understanding, which might be similar or different from yours. You don’t have to agree–but doing so might make your life easier, more fulfilled… and yes, more creative. 

Why creating is a natural completion of the “flow of conscious living”

If you’re creating, it means the inputs and experiences that enter your brain flow out again after you’ve interpreted and transformed them. 

If you don’t let them flow out again, you’re blocking yourself halfway through that process. 

Here’s a blocked flow of experience & creation:

Input from the world around you –> interpretation and interaction with your thoughts, feelings, body, past experiences –> BLOCK

That block leads to tension. More and more input builds, and even though you’re interpreting it, processing it, it has no way out… Until you can’t take it anymore, and something inside you overflows and breaks. (This leads to destruction instead of creation. We’ll talk about that in a second.)

On the other hand, if you remove that creation block (and you get unstuck), you’re completing the flow of conscious living.

Here’s an unblocked flow of experience & creating:

Input from the world around you –> interpretation and interaction with your thoughts, feelings, past experiences, your body –> a unique creation emerges.

There are no blocks here, no friction. No buildup of inputs, experiences, thoughts and emotions. It flows through and out. And that’s how it’s supposed to be.

Another metaphor: refraction in a prism

I imagine it as refraction in a prism (I’ll expand on this in a separate article). Warning: this is a metaphor, not a scientific explanation of refraction. I’m sure it’s not correct scientifically; the goal is to illustrate the process of creation.

Rays of light enter a prism and are then bent, changes direction many times. They bounce around, and emerge again on the other side. 

So for you as a living being, sensory input enters your mind, where it starts bouncing around. You interpret it through unique pathways in your brain paved by your previous experiences, thoughts, feelings… 

And by bouncing off each other and interacting, it gets transformed (refraction) and something new emerges. That’s your creation. 

The decision you have to make: will you open your mind to that creation and let it emerge? Or will you prevent it from emerging at all, so it endlessly keeps bouncing around in your head? 

What does a “creation” look like?

I can describe my current understanding of the process. But what emerges as the result of your creative process, I can’t tell. 

But it’s NOT “art” in the sense most people think about it: something you can put in a museum or publish in a book. Although it can be that.

It’s everything that emerges inside you through living your life and (this is vital) that you put back in the world. Good and bad. Pretty or ugly, useful or useless.

You don’t even have to show it to anybody. You don’t even have to look at your creations yourself. You can create because it helps you process certain events. Or because you feel like it. Or for any other reason.

Here’s a random, mundane but valid list of creations:

  • Having conversations with others
  • Listening to someone, then taking what they say to heart
  • Writing an email
  • Performing routine tasks at work
  • Cooking
  • Writing
  • Painting
  • Drawing in the sand.
  • Assembling a machine
  • Anything you create at work
  • Giving someone a hug
  • Calling a friend
  • A small note
  • A sketch
  • A grocery list
  • Delivering a work project
  • Singing
  • Dancing
  • Building something
  • Gardening
  • Playing with your kids
  • ……

Creations are created through action

You might’ve noticed these are all verbs. In other words, you create by taking conscious action to get things out of your head, into the world. 

You can’t create by doing nothing, by getting input and not letting anything come out. Again, if you do that, you’re bound to reach a point where you can’t hold it in anymore, and you uncontrollably create something less desirable. 

The things you create in a situation like that tend to be destructive. Think: an emotional outburst. Anger. Aggression.

So let’s call that creative destruction. I like to avoid that as much as possible. I can imagine you do too.

The path to getting unstuck and start creating

Quick recap. If you take the time every day to process all your experiences by consciously creating something… you’ll notice immediate relief. It’ll feel as if a huge barrier has been removed. Resistance is gone. You’ll better understand your emotions, your feelings, your patterns, and your thought processes. And you’ll be able to create more. Much more.

That’s what “getting unstuck” feels like.

If you have no idea how to start, here are four ways of getting unstuck that have worked for me and many others:

  • Morning Pages (full article/how-to coming soon). Stream of Consciousness writing: the single best tool for getting unstuck, generating ideas, and working through a LOT of other things in your life. And writing the Morning Pages every day counts as creating every day. For best results, write them by hand, not on a computer. Don’t ask me why (I might looks into it, though). (Tip: don’t read them back. And don’t show them to anybody.)
  • Long walks. The solitude, the physical movement, and the connection with your surroundings sparks new insights. This is not in itself creating, but it helps with getting insights, inspiration that can 
  • Meditation. An obvious one. It can take a while before you see the effects of this. It’s much more subtle than morning pages. And it’s no direct “creation”. But it can help you create something
  • Answering ‘journaling prompts’. Same as Morning Pages: journaling, but more “guided”.
    • For example, answer without thinking: “If it didn’t sound so stupid, today I would enjoy doing_________” Anything you answered here, do it today (or this week). I got this one from Julia Cameron (who popularized the Morning Pages). It works because you give yourself permission to do something silly. And sometimes, creating is silly 🙂

Once again: creating is taking action. So do these activities… And then take action. Put something out there. Talk to someone. Create something. Unblock yourself. 

Taking it one step further: from conscious creation to creating value

Once you’re consciously creating every day, you can (but don’t have to) take it a step further. You can learn to guide your creative process towards “creating value”. That means: creating ideas, things, concepts that are considered valuable to others around you. 

Here’s why this is a good thing: that value will inevitably flow back to you in form way or another… be it through friendships, gratitude, experiences… money… or anything else you personally value. 

That way, apart from fulfillment, you could make a living by consciously creating and dedicate your life to what you like creating the most.

If this concept of “creating value for others” triggers something inside you, you’re not alone.

You (like most people, including me) might feel shame, guilt, or insecurity around creating. You might think you aren’t “good enough” to create. Or your creations will never be valuable. You might not trust yourself (more about that here

That’s why I added a “mundane” list of “creations” above: to remove the guilt or fear of shame around creation. To expand the definition to something we all do automatically. Everything is a creation. It’s the most natural way of living your life, and it’ll lead to a lot more satisfaction and fulfillment. 

If you’re interested in taking the path of value creation in your life, I’ll have something for you soon. But first… get unstuck. You won’t be able to create value consistently if you’re stuck 🙂

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    #32 Before I learned not to listen

    ByLukas

    Before I learned not to listen
    I would stand
    seemingly still
    but secretly swaying
    swallowed up by a willow tree
    and its play with the wind

    Before I learned not to listen
    I would hold my head against the rind
    reach
    reconnect with an old friend
    the way it has always felt best
    cheek pressed to chest

    Before I learned not to listen
    a breeze in the leaves
    rustling ruminating
    would sound like raindrops in my ears
    making my eyes answer
    with a torrent of tears

    Before I learned not to listen
    a rolling thunder
    thumping like a beating heart
    would rumble from my cheek to my ear
    replacing my fear
    with a memory I used to held dear
    we were never really apart

    Before I learned not to listen
    before the lust for language
    reduced what I could see
    and sense within
    I would allow the whispers of the wordless world
    speak to me like kin

    Before I learned not to listen
    I would accept
    that once upon a time
    I remembered your name
    and once upon a time we both knew
    we were one and all the same

    Lukas Van Vyve
  • |

    #17 Humming my way to innovative insights

    ByLukas

    In his book “The Breakout Principle“, Harvard Medical School professor Herbert Benson asserts that most of our big epiphanies and insights are preceded by:

    1. A phase of strong mental and physical exertion
    2. A phase of relaxation, where you release the mind and let it roam freely.

    Benson discovered that the phase of relaxation seems to be accompanied by the release of nitric oxide (NO), a powerful neurotransmitter.

    Among other things, nitric oxide improves cellular oxygen uptake, is a vasodilator and muscle relaxer, and improves cardiovascular health.

    Benson goes as far as saying nitric oxide may be “the biochemical foundation for the relaxation response” and the catalyst for the “breakout” (= the insight or epiphany).

    When I read about Nitric Oxide in Benson’s book, I realized I had heard about Nitric Oxide in a different context (the Where Else Principle at work): pranayama, a yogic breathing practice. In his book The Illuminated Breath, Yoga teacher Dylan Werner mentions the same health benefits of nitric oxide, and adds that it’s made in the lining of the blood vessels, nasal cavity, and in the paranasal sinus.

    He also mentions we can increase production of nitric oxide by breathing slowly through the nose (so there’s more air exchange in the sinuses and nasal cavity).

    What’s more: a certain type of yogic breathing, bhramari pranayama or humming bee breath, can increase the production of nitric oxide fifteen fold because it increases the air vibration, and thus air exchange in the sinuses and nasal cavity.

    That’s right: fifteen times more nitric oxide from a simple humming breath practice.

    Seems like my daily bhramari pranayama practice is the perfect way to relax the body, the, mind, and create the perfect conditions for those new insights to emerge.

    That’s why I am sculpting away, day by day, humming my way through life… and the insights always seem to follow.

    Now I know why.

  • | | |

    #61 Talent vs discipline

    ByLukas

    In all his life Picasso produced about 147,800 pieces, consisting of: 13,500 paintings, 100,000 prints and engravings, 300 sculptures and ceramics and 34,000 illustrations – an impressive 78-year career.

    https://www.pablopicasso.org/picasso-facts.jsp

    13,500 paintings; that’s almost 37 years of producing a painting, every single day.

    How good would you be if you had painted daily for 37 years?

    Maybe still not as good as Picasso. Or maybe better. Hard to tell, because while many people might be born with talent, few people have the discipline to combine it with that level of discipline.

  • | |

    #18 Practicing neglected skills – Reps hidden in plain sight

    ByLukas

    In his book The Art of Learning (and his podcast episodes with Tim Ferris), Josh Waitzkin, former chess player and martial artist, introduces the concept of “hidden reps” when learning something new:

    I think that where the really potent, low-hanging fruit hanging in plain sight lie are in the thematic, are in breaking down the learning process into the core principles or themes you want to work on and doing reps of those. Those are just invisible to people in plain sight.

    Josh Waitzkin on the Tim Ferris Podcast: https://tim.blog/2020/03/14/josh-waitzkin-transcript-412/

    In other words, find “neglected skills“: situations you don’t often find yourself in and where you haven’t developed a lot of trust and confidence in your abilities yet.

    Then isolate and practice them until you develop confidence and trust for that particular neglected skill.

    For example, when working on his chess game, instead of practicing the “openings” like everybody else, Josh would isolate the “end games”(the final part of a chess match) and practice only these.

    Most people wouldn’t think of doing that; they would always start at the opening (that’s where a chess match starts, after all) and practice the end game only as an afterthought, deep into their practice session when they had already spent all their energy on the opening.

    By cutting out the opening entirely during practice sessions, Josh got a lot more “hidden reps” with the end game than his competitors, which led to a big competitive advantage.

    This might seem obvious, but in my experience, it’s really quite counterintuitive not to start at the beginning when practicing a skill.

    For example, when learning a new guitar piece, it feels strange not to start at the beginning but to pick out a difficult part and practice that over and over again. It’s not impossible, and many teachers will tell you to isolate difficult parts, but my (and many other students’) first instinct would always be to start at the top, over and over again.

    Which begs the question:

    Where else are we “starting from the top” over and over again, instead of finding and isolating the neglected skills?

    Neglected skills and hidden reps examples

    Some examples of how I’m trying to integrate this principle into my life:

    1. By the end of a yoga session, my muscles are so fatigued there are certain poses and moves I just can’t execute anymore with proper technique. Over the long run, this leads to an imbalance; I get good at the poses that appear early on in the session, and neglect the ones later in the session.
      To counteract this, I sometimes do separate sessions where I isolate those “neglected moves”. Suddenly, they become much easier, and I learn to execute them with proper technique.
    2. I’ve been writing and journaling every day for almost 2 years now. Those reps have trained me to get over the bump of the empty page, open the floodgates, and generate many ideas and insights.
    3. Out of all that writing and journaling, I barely ever created anything “publish-worthy”. Now I’m writing a daily blog post, which trains me to take the ideas I’m generating anyway, and turn them into something I can publish.
    4. Instead of publishing one long post a week – or once every couple of years like some book authors – where I’d only rarely experience that feeling and fear of “putting something out there”, I decided to publish something every day, even if it’s very short. Daily short form posts give me seven times more publishing practice than one long weekly post.
      I’m 15 days in and already notice I’m developing much more trust in myself that I’m capable of publishing something every day and there’s always something to write about. Even when I decide on a different schedule in the future, I’ll have much more experience in putting content out regularly than someone with a lower-frequency schedule.

    In sum

    Neglected skills are everywhere. No matter what you’re trying to learn or achieve, creating the circumstances where you can identify and isolate them, then put in the hidden reps, will pay big dividends.

  • | |

    #16 The insights have always been here

    ByLukas

    Creativity isn’t about inventing new concepts, thoughts, pieces of art or machines out of thin air.

    It’s not even making new connections between unrelated concepts.

    Creativity is exposing connections that have always been there but nobody has noticed before.

    Again: the connections have always been there. The hard part is noticing them.

    That requires presence. Slowing down. Taking a step back. Asking “Where have I seen this before?”. Trusting your mind for doing what it does best: recognizing patterns. Paying attention. Sometimes, paying no attention at all and letting the breakout principle work its magic.

    This view of creativity can set you free from a lifetime of frustration
    because once life becomes one big exploration
    where every detour, every diversion, every event
    no matter how unimportant or seemingly insignificant
    holds the promise of a new insight
    a new breakthrough, a connection to stumble upon…

    And once the crushing pressure – invent something you must
    disappears, turns to dust
    replaced by curiosity and wanderlust
    then you can slow down, enjoy the present moment, and trust
    that everything you ever wanted to know, feel, see, hear
    every insight or desire you hold dear
    has always been here
    hidden in plain view, underneath the world’s veneer.

  • | | |

    #43 Quick-Start Guide to Stream of Consciousness Journaling (Morning Pages)

    ByLukas

    On 1. January 2021, I started writing 3 pages of stream-of-consciousness journaling a day. I haven’t missed a day since. That’s 663 days in a row: an inner dialogues of 1989 pages poured in to piles of journals.

    Stream-of-consciousness journaling is also often called Morning Pages (a term coined by Julia Cameron in her book “The Artist’s Way“).

    The idea is that you wake up in the morning and before you do anything else, take a journal and pen, and you start externalizing the voice talking to yourself in your head on the page.

    You don’t stop to think about perfect phrasing (your inner voice never stops talking, either). In fact, you don’t lift your pen off the paper at all until you’ve filled 3 pages.

    Shopping lists, to-dos, dreams, interactions, worries, fears, excitement, goals, friends, family, memories, ideas, goals,… whatever’s on your mind.

    No poetry, no perfect prose, no structured sentences, no coherent insights – unless that’s what flows out of you.

    No judgment either. You never even have to read this back.

    Nothing but pure, unfiltered stream of consciousness.

    This simple practice has transformed me.

    Why write Morning Pages?

    • The feeling of liberation once you’re able to relax your mind and channel your stream of consciousness. Like an athlete “in the zone”, your mind becomes one with the pen in your hand, and words flow from your head and heart onto the paper. Once you get it, writing 3 pages becomes easy – after all, your inner voice never shuts up.
    • Intentionality. When I write them by hand, it seems to slow me down just enough to get in the zone, calm my racing thoughts and think more slowly and deliberately.
    • Creative breakthroughs. You start by writing down everything on your mind in an unfiltered way, free of judgment and stress. Then, you start “sculpting away, day by day.
    • Externalizing thought patterns, loops, destructive self-talk. Once they’re on the page, it’s hard to ignore the way you speak to yourself.
    • Recognize recurring patterns and topics that come back over and over again.

    Tips for success:

    • Write 3 pages today. Not more, not less. But do it today. Cut yourself off when you reach 3 pages. Today. Repeat tomorrow.
    • Don’t read your notes back. Don’t show them to anyone. You want this to be pure, raw, unfiltered stream of consciousness. This is not publication material, this is a representation of your messy internal dialogue.
    • If you have a creative breakthrough or interesting idea while writing your Morning Pages, keep writing until the 3 pages are full; then make a separate note about the idea or insight you had.
    • See it as a huge unpolished pile of thoughts with interesting connections; then use that to uncover interesting connections, good ideas that you can further develop. Good ideas and insights will be buried in a sea of fluff – and that’s fine. Volume matters. (again, sculpting away, day by day)
    • Julia Cameron suggests writing your Morning Pages right after you get out of bed – before your ego wakes up.

    Or don’t do any of the above and just write.

    Write first thing tomorrow morning.

    Don’t overthink it, just write.

    Don’t read it back, just write.

    Don’t worry about grammar, just write.

    Then when you’re done, write some more.

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