1: Many people are naturally “Either/or.”
“Either extroverts or introverts, competitive or cooperative, smart or naïve,” Steven Kotler writes in The Art of Impossible: A Peak Performance Primer.
However, people with long-term careers requiring creativity are not built this way.
Creatives are often “Both/and.”
“Creative people show tendencies of thought and action that in most people are segregated,” psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi writes in his masterwork, creativity. “They contain contradictory extremes; instead of being an ‘individual,’ each of them is a ‘multitude.'”
Exhibit one: Conservative and rebellious, two traits directly opposed to one other.
“Yet, creatives are often required to be both at once,” Steven observes. “A filmmaker who is making a throwback detective story is conserving the tradition of noir filmmaking. That same filmmaker may choose to replace the dark, moody shots often found in this style of film with brightly lit, supersaturated colors—wherein she’s rebelling against tradition. And she can obviously be both in the same film.”
Or, consider being introverted and extroverted.
“Creative businessmen might be extremely introverted when they’re constructing their sales strategy for the next quarter,” he writes, “but extremely gregarious when out on those actual sales calls.
“Or fantastical and realistic. A science fiction writer has to be fantastical to write a book about the life on other planets, and extremely practical when designing the marketing strategy for the launch of the same book.”
Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi discerned ten “both/and” characteristics of creatives: Energetic and sedate, smart and naïve, playful and disciplined, fantastical and realistic, extroverted and introverted, ambitious and selfless, conservative and rebellious, humble and proud, passionate and objective, sensitive to others and cold as ice.
2: Living this way isn’t easy. Life for creatives can be an emotional roller coaster.
“The openness and sensitivity of creative individuals often exposes them to suffering and pain, yet also [to] a great deal of enjoyment,” Mihaly writes. “The suffering is easy to understand. The greater sensitivity can cause slights and anxieties that are not usually felt by the rest of us. . . Being alone at the forefront of a discipline also makes us exposed and vulnerable. . . .
“It is also true that deep interest and involvement in obscure subjects often goes unrewarded, or even brings on ridicule. Divergent thinking is often perceived as deviant by the majority, and so the creative person may feel isolated and misunderstood. These occupational hazards do come with the territory, so to speak, and it is difficult to see how a person could be creative and at the same time insensitive to them.”
Creativity takes a toll on us emotionally. “Decade after decade, that toll adds up,” Steven notes.
3: This brings us to his final bit of advice around fostering long-term, ongoing creativity: We must keep our word to ourselves.
“Peak performance is a checklist,” he writes. “It’s the fortitude to get up every day and complete every goal on that checklist, and repeat. But once creativity starts getting into this mix and those goals become creative goals, the roller coaster can sweep us away. This is why we have to learn to keep our word to ourselves.”
In other words, When we set a goal, we must complete that goal. No matter the emotions involved.
“This is how we sustain creativity over the distance,” Steven suggests.
More tomorrow!
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Reflection: Am I satisfied with my ability to keep my word to myself and achieve the goals I have set forward?
Action: Journal about my answer to the questions above.
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