Happiness has many guises. It can be laughter, it can be love, it can be Beauty and it can be hope. It can also be hard work, sweat, frustration and achievement. It can be creating, becoming, learning and growing. Real happiness, according to the experts, requires action, movement and challenge. It requires you to do more than just dream, it requires you to do.
Contrary to what we usually imagine, the best moments in life are not passive, relaxing times. Instead, they usually happen when your body or mind is stretched to its limits in an effort to achieve something worthwhile, something that pushes you to respond thoughtfully, to take risks and to keep your faith in self.
To experience these best moments, scientists suggest you need to find a project that inspires you; that will require determination and present a challenge. While a challenge requires effort to overcome the problems inherent in achieving a goal, importantly, it also requires creativity. Whether your challenge is physical or mental, mechanical or spiritual, creativity is the tool you must draw on to experience true happiness. Without creativity, happiness remains elusive, our attempts to grasp it frustrated. Fostering creativity then is a sure-fire way to find the kind of happiness that creates a good life.
So what is creativity?
Creativity is about problem solving and finding solutions as well as about the production of items of aesthetic value. In all its manifestations, creativity is an organic process, one that relies on evolution to get from idea to tangible result. While the concept of creativity has been imbued with magical properties, the reality is entirely different, because creativity doesn’t just happen and isn’t simply a matter of having a great idea.
Creativity requires flexibility of the mind. There is less magic and more connections between what you already know and how you have previously applied that knowledge. This is what is most interesting about creativity: its use of what is already known, just in an entirely different situation. Creativity is about experimentation, about having a go to see what works.
Creativity needs you to embrace mistakes and failures as a way into something better; it needs you to take a deep breath and plunge in with everything you have. It requires passion, dedication and confidence. It can only happen when you give yourself mind, body and soul. With that commitment comes the joy that can only be had when you take control of your entire being: when you use your gifts — some hidden, some well used — to make a dream come true or make a problem disappear.
So how does all of this hard work lead to happiness? How can failure and hours, days or years of effort to finally get a result make you happy? There are two key ways that creativity breeds happiness: the idea of flow and the joy that a sense of achievement brings to the soul.
Flow
Proposed by US-based psychology professor Mihály Csíkszentmihályi, flow is mental state achieved when you pursue an activity in which you become fully immersed. It’s a state that generates a feeling of energised focus, necessarily drawing in your full involvement, with success coming — in part — from the actual process of what you are doing rather than relying on the end result for complete gratification.
Csíkszentmihályi says that flow is “being completely involved in an activity for its own sake [where] the ego falls away. Time flies. Every action, movement and thought follows inevitably from the previous one … Your whole being is involved and you’re using your skills to the utmost.”
You may already recognise some of the elements of flow as being the same and similar to those of mindfulness. Being in the moment has long been associated with finding contentment and release from self-judgement, freeing the self to explore the world in a more open way. This kind of open-minded curiosity breeds opportunities — opportunity for relationships and knowledge — that were previously blocked to you. These are the kinds of opportunities that feed and influence creativity, that open you up to solutions you could not have found before.
It follows, then, that when you’re deeply embedded in being creative — solving a problem or “making” something — flow happens. When it’s a project you believe in and are passionate about, when your desire to do is greater than any distraction, you have achieved flow. And with this state comes joy: you’ll feel a low hum of excitement in your belly, the lightness of being that the idea of possibility brings and the nearly bubbly high of anticipation.
As part of the movement of positive psychology, the concept of flow has received a lot of attention from research. A growing body of scientific evidence has come from this research indicating that the experience of flow is highly correlated with happiness. As an added advantage, it has been suggested that as a result of the experience of happiness that comes with flow, you may also develop other positive traits such as high concentration, high self-esteem and better health.
Achieving flow
Set clear goals. To fully embrace a task you must have clear goals in place. How you reach your goals may change during the process, but the end game should be something you can fully involve yourself in, something that will engage you for a period of time.
Acknowledge successes and failures so that you can adjust your behaviour as needed; any goal you desire to achieve requires flexibility of mind and emotion. Setbacks and failures are inevitable but they must not be seen as anything other than lessons to learn from. This is also true of successes. Looking carefully at why or why not an action succeeded or failed is necessary for the journey. Without this kind of assessment you won’t have a clear way forward.
Maintain a balance between your ability level and the challenge so that the activity is neither too easy nor too difficult. Happiness does not come if you set yourself up for failure or if you play it safe — it comes from a challenge that’s realistic and within your ability to attain. It’s important, then, to ensure your goals are within your means to achieve and you can access the resources you need to help you get there.
Ensure you have a sense of personal control over the situation or activity. While group work has its rewards, a sense of real joy comes from complete control over a task that means something to you. It energises, it keeps you focused and it provides a sense of ownership that boosts confidence.
Make sure the activity is intrinsically rewarding, so there is an effortlessness of action. While your project might also benefit others, you must choose to work on something that will also give you a real sense of accomplishment. Whether the reward is emotional, intellectual or financial, it must be worthwhile to you.
Achievement
Happiness also lies in the joy of achievement and the thrill that is found in creative effort. To feel whole and happy, you need to accomplish, to achieve and to have personal triumph. As such, happiness doesn’t come from doing easy work but from the satisfaction of successfully completing a difficult task that demands the best of you. Happiness, it seems, thrives when you are active, in the moment and dedicated.
On the basis of many years of research, psychologists are confident you can only find a real and lasting sense of satisfaction from your own efforts, not from any outside influence. While receiving accolades from others feels good, the rush of dopamine that results is brief and, in the long run, not enough to make an impact on your sense of self. Instead, research has found that people who regularly win awards are driven by the effort that earned them the reward rather than the result and reward itself. It is this focus that offers long-term benefits, that provides satisfaction, joy and contentment.
While there is a good deal of advice around about the power of the mind to influence your sense of wellbeing and happiness, wellbeing can’t exist just in your own head. Instead, wellbeing is a combination of feeling good, having meaning or a purpose in life, healthy relationships and a sense of accomplishment. It is this feeling of accomplishment that contributes to what the ancient Greeks called eudaimonia, which basically translates to flourishing and the idea of happiness.
To flourish is to thrive and prosper, it is to become what you were meant to become. When you flourish you use your creativity to achieve your goals, to attain happiness, joy and the high of a good and productive, meaningful life.
Increase your creativity and happiness
Given the aura of “specialness” that surrounds the idea of creativity it can be difficult to see yourself as creative if you don’t believe you have ever produced anything creative. Apart from broadening your definition of what it means to be creative or what constitutes acts of creativity, how do you begin to delve into creativity if you don’t think you have a creative bone in your body?
The first step is self-belief. Even if no one has ever told you that something you did was “original”, everyone has the skills to be creative. It’s the way you function in everyday life. It’s the way you deal with the individuals who are your children, the way you find a way to work when your usual route is blocked, the way you prepare a meal for unexpected guests with whatever you have in the pantry.
Develop your curiosity. Developing your curiosity is a sure-fire way to dip into your creativity. It gives you a fresh perspective so that you can begin to see the world differently and thus come across inspiration that wasn’t previously in your view. Curiosity also offers you access to fresh ideas by giving you “intersection experience”. Intersection experience occurs when you combine ideas from different fields to come up with something completely new.
Cultivate everyday creativity. Creativity doesn’t have to be world-changing; everyday creativity is just as important to your wellbeing. Indeed, studies have shown that people who practise forms of everyday creativity have a tendency toward open-mindedness and are curious, persistent, positive, energetic and intrinsically motivated by their chosen activities. This is where passion comes in. A sure way to boost your creativity is to channel your energy into issues or desires that inspire your interest beyond basic curiosity.
Search for your passion. Without passion it’s difficult to maintain the time and attention required to be creative. As mentioned before, creativity isn’t for the faint-hearted, but passion creates the kind of energy that brings about flow, generates more creativity and feeds your passion as you strive for success.
Rethink failure. Another key to boosting your creativity and happiness is to rethink failure. Fear of failure is the surest way to dampen your creativity because it stops action before it even begins. Instead, you need to see life as a series of experiments and any failure that these experiments elicit is an opportunity for growth.
Develop support networks. Creativity doesn’t happen in a vacuum. Of course, the support and encouragement of friends and family is intrinsic to your happiness and ability to achieve but you also need the input of others to help inspire new ideas. This could be finding a mentor in the field you’re interested in or joining a special interest group that you can bounce ideas off and share experiences with.
Take risks. The inability to take a risk stifles creativity and keeps us from fully living life. To be creative you must be willing to step out of your comfort zone and shake things up. Not only does this free you from your normal way of being and doing; it also brings opportunities your way that may be just what you need to get over the next hurdle to reaching your goals.
Try the “six hats” technique. Edward de Bono’s six thinking hats is a technique for problem solving and generating new ideas. Each “hat” represents a different way of thinking helping to take you out of your habitual problem solving techniques to try something new.
- White Hat focuses you on the data available. Look at the information you have, and see what you can learn from it. Look for gaps in your knowledge, and either try to fill them or take account of them.
- Red Hat helps you look at problems using your intuition, gut reaction and emotion.
- Black Hat examines the negative points of a decision. Look at it cautiously and defensively. Try to see why it might not work. This is important because it highlights the weak points in a plan. It allows you to eliminate them, alter them or prepare contingency plans to counter them.
- Yellow Hat is positive thinking. It’s the viewpoint that helps you to see all the benefits of a decision and the value in it. This hat can help reinvigorate you after a setback.
- Green Hat is the creative hat and it’s where you can let your thoughts flow, the more out there the better.
- Blue Hat is the one you wear when you need to find a new direction. With this hat on you can look coolly and calmly at what you need to try next and direct action.
Avoid self-censorship. Creativity is often scary because it leads to ideas that threaten the status quo, that push you to do things you may not have tried before or explore parts of yourself that you might be hesitant to visit. However, creativity is killed by censorship — particularly self-censorship, as it doesn’t allow freedom of thought. It’s also common to use self-censorship to limit yourself to “safe” ideas because you’re uncertain or worried about what others might think of your plans. When you limit or censor yourself out of fear of self or others, it isn’t possible to achieve your dreams in any meaningful way or feel true happiness. It’s only when you disinhibit yourself that you can reach the heights of real creativity.
Make an inspiration board. This can work to fire your creativity and passion in those moments when you feel you’ve lost your way. An inspiration board should hold ideas, quotes, magazine articles, the names or images of inspiring people, pictures that represent your goals and any other items that are meaningful. Place it somewhere you’ll regularly see it, as just a glance can start the subconscious firing away. Keep adding to the board as you make progress with your project but also make sure you remove anything that is distracting or has become unhelpful.
Make time for creativity. If you’ve ever said to yourself that “one day” you’ll get around to pursuing your dreams, you’re not making time for success and happiness. Later may sometimes never come because once you let more “important” things get in your way and allow you to stop trying. When you keep your dreams in your head you’re simply procrastinating. If you set aside time each week to begin to act on your dreams, you’ll begin to tap into your creativity and happiness will result. Do be wary of using “research” as your only way of acting on your dreams. Too much research can also be a kind of procrastination as you still haven’t taken any tangible action.
Creating meaning
There are many ways to tap into your creativity and many reasons why pursuing creativity is vital for living a full and happy life. As humans, we need a purpose, a purpose that’s meaningful not just make-work.
In order to achieve the happiness that creativity and achievement bring, you must learn to change the patterns of thought that have kept you “safe” for so long. Breaking free to explore the unusual or quirky and turn ideas upside down and around in order to create something new from something old is all about being willing to take a step away from who you think are now towards who you can be in the future.
Happiness is a much broader concept than you may think. It’s not just about feeling good in a moment; it’s about long-lasting contentment and satisfaction with life. It’s not possible to be happy all the time but it is possible to enjoy a positive attitude that will always take you from a bad place to a good place. Using your creativity to solve your problems brings confidence and joy, brings openness and generosity of spirit and thought. When you achieve in your own life, you are more willing and able to assist others to find a sense of meaning and joy in theirs.
Happiness and creativity don’t just happen — they require work and they feed off each other. Beginning the process requires conscious effort that will soon become habit, soon become effortless, so that your creativity, rather than being outside of yourself, becomes an intrinsic part of who you are. As mentioned before, exercising your creativity and reaping the benefits of satisfaction and joy doesn’t require you to reinvent the wheel. It simply requires you to attach yourself to something that invigorates you, that you care about and that’s been on your mind for a while or that needs resolution.
Commit to your task and take that first important step toward achievement. Be strong through the inevitable hard times and make the most of the times where everything goes right. Finally, remember that living a half life isn’t much of a life at all when a full life is within your reach if you only decide to make it so.
Nikki Williamson is a freelance writer and teacher who is always looking for ways to inspire herself and others to live a more effective life.
