How #SlOW can help you be more creative

Here we are on Saturday morning. And like every Saturday, I share with you the beauty of slowing down. Today, my plea for slow talks about creativity. I'll explain to you why it's good to take your time, when it comes time to tickle your imagination.

Take the example of creativity in our professional lives. Whether you are an artist or an engineer, we all need creativity. It is essential as much in the creation of a work as in the development of any innovative project or in the search for a clever solution.

However, in many settings, the work context is dominated by urgency. A regrettable situation, because inspiration does not come with haste! But not all employers have understood this. Some people confuse “taking your time” with “wasting your time”.

It must therefore be argued loud and clear that creativity cannot be ordered immediately. The reason is simple: when our time is short, we have to go ahead with our first idea. However, the first idea is rarely the best… More often than not, it belongs to the “already seen” or “cliché” family. Normal, since, in a race against time, the reflex is to turn to what we know. Conclusion: you can only expect a rather banal result when you ask a creative to produce in a hurry.

So what can we do to give ideas a chance to reach us? It's simple, you have to make room. It has happened to you for sure: a prodigious idea that occurs in the shower! The proof that the sparks of genius often appear when you empty your mind.

Boredom, fertile ground for the imagination, is also a good example. What does a bored child do? He will turn to his imagination, inventing games and stories in which he is the hero.

All of this is logical, since by putting the “conscious” on pause, we then leave more room for the unconscious to come alive. And the process of inspiration is precisely where it happens: in the unconscious. Even if we have the impression that our enlightenments are sudden, good ideas make their way into our minds quietly. They feed on everything we come across and take shape in our heads, bit by bit.

In other words, even if you didn't see it coming and you sometimes have a hard time explaining where it comes from, know that this bubble in your brain that made you cry "eureka!" was in the making for quite a while in your unconscious.

So, I repeat, rest time is necessary. This is what allows us to renew our energies and see things clearly. You now see why the match between "stress" and "creation" gives a bit of a dysfunctional couple...

Moral of the story, if you want to wake up your creativity, get some fresh air, take a walk, meditate or disconnect for a while and, above all, do not feel guilty!