By Adrian Ellis

You know how a particular smell or perfume, or a song, can bring back a powerful memory of a person, place, or time in your life? Certain stimuli can trigger strong emotional states. For me, if I smell Calvin Klein’s ‘Eternity’, I’m back in grade 9, going out on my first date, and I’m madly in love. It’s as if I’ve time traveled on an emotional level, re-living all those strong feelings from those turbulent times.

In this phenomena lies a key to enhanced creativity and unleashing inspiration.

As artists, we know both sides of the coin – those times when you are stuck, you are in a rut, you need and try to come up with ideas but you are banging your head against a wall. Everything seems hard, and nothing comes freely. Then there are those high-flying times, when you are ‘in the zone’ – ideas come fast, and there seem to be no barriers between you and inspiration. Even the challenges that arise are fun to deal with, and the solutions are exciting and inspiring.

I don’t think there’s any reason not to be able to spend every moment in the zone when you want to. Especially when you HAVE to be – if you are up against a deadline, or you are in the studio and valuable time is going by, and morale is slipping. You should be able to make every creative moment a pleasure and a joy, and ensure that great results can come out of any and every session. Maybe, we can even challenge Edison, and make the part of success that is inspiration more than a measly 10%!

What is Creative Flow?

By looking at the following characteristics suggested by psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi , you’ll see why this is advantageous to you as an artist/creative person (from Mark McGuinness‘ blog, Wishful Thinking):

• “There is immediate feedback to your actions. Not only do you know what you are trying to achieve, you are also clear about how well you are doing it. This makes it easier to adjust for optimum performance. It also means that by definition flow only occurs when you are performing well.

• There is a balance between challenges and skills. If the challenge is too difficult we get frustrated; if it is too easy, we get bored. Flow occurs when we reach an optimum balance between our abilities and the task in hand, keeping us alert, focused and effective.

• Action and awareness are merged. We have all had experiences of being in one place physically, but with our minds elsewhere – often out of boredom or frustration. In flow, we are completely focused on what we are doing in the moment.

• Distractions are excluded from consciousness. When we are not distracted by worries or conflicting priorities, we are free to become fully absorbed in the task.

• There is no worry of failure. A single-minded focus of attention means that we are not simultaneously judging our performance or worrying about things going wrong.

• Self-consciousness disappears. When we are fully absorbed in the activity itself, we are not concerned with our self-image, or how we look to others. While flow lasts, we can even identify with something outside or larger than our sense of self – such as the painting or writing we are engaged in, or the team we are playing in.

• The sense of time becomes distorted. Several hours can ‘fly by’ in what feels like a few minutes, or a few moments can seem to last for ages. The activity becomes ‘autotelic’ – meaning it is an end in itself.

Whenever most of the elements of flow are occurring, the activity becomes enjoyable and rewarding for its own sake. This is why so many artists and creators report that their greatest satisfaction comes through their work. As Noel Coward put it, “Work is more fun than fun”.”

So how do you do it? By using Ancient Ritual Magic!

Ok, first of all, you’re going to need to put down that knife and let that poor goat go. That’s totally not what I meant.

What you want to have is a ritual or a set of repeated behaviors, that you will go through before your creative endeavors. This way, you’ll have something which locks you into a creative zone, and as you use it, the more powerful it’ll become. You are basically performing self-hypnosis, to enter what psychologists call a High Performance State.

Here’s what you need in order to have a ritual that’ll be a powerful trigger for this state (from Mark McGuinness’ post at Lateral Action )

• “Emotional intensity – the stronger the original emotional state associated with the trigger, the stronger the emotional response whenever the same trigger is encountered in future.

• Distinctiveness – the more unusual the trigger, the less diluted the emotion will be with other associations.

• Repetition – the more often the intense emotion is experienced in combination with the distinctive trigger, the more powerful the trigger becomes.”

There has to be something unique and distinct about what you do – it can’t be something you do all the time, like drinking a beverage. It has to have strong emotional intensity. You might drink a cup of a special tea blend reserved only for this moment, from a special mug you got on that trip to The Hit Factory, and you do that every time before you engage in creative work. Eventually it becomes a powerful symbol that will lock your brain into that creative zone – and it’ll happen quicker and quicker over time if you consistently ‘work that magic’.

What are some examples of rituals?

Rituals don’t have to be elaborate or particularly esoteric – they just have to have an emotional tie, they have to be particular and unique to that moment, and they have to be consistently repeated. One of the most common is the pre-show ritual many bands have – they huddle, clasp hands, say a chant together – it prepares them to hit the stage ‘psyched up’.

According to The Telegraph, English rugby players Jason Robinson and Mark Cueto have some interesting habits: Robinson “Has a strict routine for his strapping, choosing certain times before a match for each bit.. [and].. likes to head out of the tunnel first”, while Cueto “Eats the same meal of beans on toast, puts his left boot on first and ensures he is last off the coach and last out the changing room.”

For more examples of interesting/unusual creative rituals employed by some well-known creatives, check out this fascinating blog: http://dailyroutines.typepad.com/daily_routines/

Do you have any cool rituals that you employ to get into the Zone?

Photo by entrelec

Voodoo Your Creative Flow: Using Rituals To Maximize Your Creativity by Adrian Ellis is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 Unported License.

Technorati Tags: Adrian Ellis, creative rituals, creativity, Mark McGuinness, Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi

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This entry was posted on Wednesday, April 1st, 2009 at 9:27 am and is filed under Music Culture, Music Production, studio 2.0. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.