How to increase your surface area for inspiration

The scientific research on inspiration is incredibly clear - and honestly frustrating for anyone who even half identifies as Type-A: It’s not something you can make happen.

In fact, one of the core dimensions of inspiration is that it has to be spontaneous. Externally-driven. It only happens when we happen to encounter something transcendent outside of our own head.

As a Type-A “non-artist” - this is the hardest aspect of Creative Health for me to accept. I, like many of you, have lived most of my life in the systems that reward “hard work.” That value the amount of effort you put in, how quickly you achieve your goals and how well you follow a linear path.

So, the idea that feeling inspired wasn’t something I could generate on my own kind of…broke my brain.

For the past few weeks, I’ve been obsessed with rebuilding my understanding of inspiration - and how to cultivate it - from a scientific perspective. And last week, I double-clicked on the three dimensions of inspiration, one of which that we all seem to be overlooking (including myself).

But something I haven’t been able to stop thinking about is that being inspired isn’t something you can force. Unlike many other aspects of our Creative Health, it’s not necessarily a skill you can strengthen or something you can get better at - which makes it a direct rebellion against our always on, always optimizing culture.

Though, that doesn’t mean it’s something you can’t cultivate. In fact, with the right conditions, you can, of course, become more inspired over time.

That starts with understanding a little something we call in the scientific realm: Salience.

CreativeRx is your dose of creative thinking - no matter if you’re an artist or not. Every week Creative Health Scientist, Katina Bajaj, shares how to incorporate our most essential survival skills - play, wonder and critical thinking - into everyday life.