The creativity (and science) of habit

You’re struggling to finish that novel, you know you have a box-office hit hiding out in your head, there’s a poem teasing at your brain – if only you had time to write!  If truth be told, however busy we are, most of us do have the time – the problem is we don’t have the habit.

Habit; It’s the buzz-word for success. You will see the word linked with everything from exercise & diet to getting a promotion. And for good reason – habits really do rewire your brain. It generally takes around 28 days. So if you want to change something in your life or add an element to it – do it for a month.

There is a science behind the theory and the best example comes from NASA. In the early days of the space program, NASA designed an experiment to determine the physiological and psychological effects of the spatial disorientation the astronauts would experience in the weightless environment of space. The astronauts were given convex goggles, which they had to wear 24 hours a day for 30 days and nights. The goggles flipped everything in their field of vision 180 degrees, which meant they saw everything upside down.  As you can imagine, this made life extremely difficult!

But then on the 26^th day something amazing happened; one of the astronauts found that his vision had turned right-side-up again even though he was still wearing the goggles. Between days 26-30, the same thing happened for each of the remaining astronauts.Their brains had created fresh neural pathways! And of course – it took the same amount of time for their brains to re-adapt to life without the goggles.  Later NASA did the experiment again and had half the astronauts take off their goggles for just 24hrs at day 15. When they put the goggles back on it still took 25 to 30 days for their brains to adjust. So just breaking the continuity of the new habit once, put the astronauts back to square one.

Aristotle said, ‘We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.’

In The Artist’s Way, the seminal book on the subject of creativity, with a focus on establishing habits that open the creative mind, Julia Cameron says ‘The bedrock tool of a creative recovery is a daily practice called Morning Pages.’ The idea being that every morning you hand-write three pages about anything and everything that comes into your mind. The pages don't have to make sense.  You write first thing in the morning as 'You're trying to catch yourself before your ego's defenses are in place.' 

Creating a stream of consciousness every morning sets up the habit of writing and helps to clear the mind and unleash ideas.  

When Stephen King is working on a book (which is most of the time) he writes every day of the year, which he says, '…includes Christmas, the Fourth, and my birthday.'  King finishes a draft within three months but he does point out that by just writing 300 words a day we can complete a novel in a year.

It’s just a matter of getting into the habit.


Amazon Creative Writing Guides

Denise Howie World Famous in B.C.