Chapter 4

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Get creative

‘Companies have to nurture [creativity and motivation] – and have to do it by building a compassionate yet performance-driven corporate culture. In the knowledge economy the traditional soft people side of our business has become the new hard side.’

Gay Mitchell, Executive VP, HR, Royal Bank Financial Group

Organisations with high levels of creativity demonstrate a clear edge in both developing new services and products, and outwitting rivals by doing the job faster, better and/or cheaper. Research confirms increased market growth, profit and capitalisation from creative business. And even if these are not your own or your company’s goals, creativity in the workplace has consistently been found to enhance job satisfaction, reduce stress, inattention and burnout. The link between mindfulness and workplace creativity is fast becoming widely recognised. More and more organisations are realising that a present-moment-focused mind is more likely to have better ideas and novel solutions to the pivotal as well as the common challenges that we all face while on the job day to day.

The Walt Disney Company was an early advocate of mindfulness-enhanced creativity at work. Just over 30 years ago, the company felt lacking in any creative direction. To help them along, the ‘Imagineers’ (the company’s team of design creatives in charge of design, development and innovation) called in a mindfulness trainer, and after a series of mindfulness-based creativity workshops they went on to develop Tokyo Disney, Disneyland Hong Kong and Disneyland Paris. It might be of interest to know that Disney’s Imagineers are still considered some of the best in the business and continue to lead the way, pioneering developments in innovative 3D virtual-reality displays and animatronics today. General Mills and Intel have also both spoken openly about the link between mindfulness practice and workplace innovation.

So, could you, your team or your company do with more creativity on the job? Well, in this chapter we are going to take a look at the role of mindfulness in helping us to get more creative and innovative at work.

In this chapter we are going to look at:

• What creativity actually is.
• How creativity is relevant to the workplace.
• What is involved in the creative process.
• What stops us from being creative at work.
• How we can boost and tap into more creativity with mindfulness.

As you know by now, we are really keen for you to experience what we’re talking about in this book rather than for you to just read about it on these pages. So, get ready to get your creative juices flowing. Here goes...

What is creativity at work?

For some of us the word creative may conjure up unsettling images of a floppy-hatted, kooky artist staring deeply into a blank canvas with a paint brush pressed tightly against his lips or a mad scientist feverishly mixing colourful potions in a littered and smoky basement lab somewhere. Yes, we might fear that any sudden dramatic flurry of imaginative and abstract ideas could leave us looking a bit like Back to the Future’s Doc Brown driving off in his DeLorean Time Machine (not the greatest look if you want to impress the boss, your colleagues or clients!).

This association (between the wacky and the creative) has often led to confusion around the appropriateness and relevance of creativity within a business context. If this sounds like you, then please take note: creativity is crucial for business, as among its many benefits it helps to promote improved problem-solving and also stimulates innovation. Please also remember that it’s just as relevant for folks working in the accounts department as it is for others engaged in more obviously creative endeavours at work, like design, developing or marketing. Yes, we can all do with a bit of creativity while on the job.

We encourage you to recognise that whatever your own daily work involves, even if you don’t consider yourself to have a particularly creative part to play (say, like the folks at Disney we mentioned earlier), a certain amount of free-flowing creativity can help us all out of tricky situations, assist in getting the job done and help us to progress further in our career/business. Creativity helps us to find solutions to everyday work-related problems; these could be anything from how we might get into work when our usual route is blocked (by yet another public transport strike), where to go for lunch when we’re bored with the same old café down the road, how we might continue to work when our computer crashes, to redesigning products and services, or opening up to new possibilities when we feel like it’s time for a change of job/career.

We can all relate to those moments at work when we just can’t see the wood for the trees – maybe when we’ve been handed that important brief and instructed to design that new project or maybe when sat in that team business development meeting and the boss is expecting some insightful contributions (after all that is what she pays you for!). At these times you may find yourself praying to the gods for some (even the tiniest piece of) inspiration so that you can get stuck into some exciting and meaningful work again and impress the bigwigs too. In these absences of any creativity, we can become knotted in a cognitive loop of uninspiring thoughts. We become increasingly frustrated with ourselves, and also with the divine Muse herself (who has clearly taken it upon herself to go for an early lunch!). At these moments work can feel like really hard labour, a real drag and often an excruciatingly painful experience. So how do we escape from the binds of normality and get our creative juices flowing once again? Well, we’ll be taking a look at just that in no time at all, but before we do, let’s just consider the ins and outs of creativity a little more.

Essentially, creativity can be described as: the ability to perceive the world in new ways; to generate new ideas that may be useful in solving problems. But in business terms, coming up with lots of original ideas is not where the creative process ends. In business an idea must be appropriate, effective, actionable and profitable – not just original. It must have a positive impact on how business gets done, for example by either improving a product or advancing the process of getting that product made. The actual creative process does involve more than this (which we’ll come to in a just a moment) but for now, why don’t you put your own creativity to the test and have a go at the exercises on the next page. This way you’ll also get a better understanding of what’s involved in being creative.

Exercise 4.1: Work in progress

Shifting perspective

How many different ideas for the use of this object can you come up with right now? Take your time and try to think of as many as you can, giving yourself a few minutes to really allow the mind to go to town on this one, before you read on.

So, how did you do? Feeling stuck? Has your Muse gone AWOL, leaving you with nothing more than ‘build a house’, maybe? Or maybe you were able to come up with lots of ideas. Either way, have a go at the next task.

Connecting the dots

Can you think of a common association between these three words?

There’s no right and wrong with this, just see what comes to mind. Go on, it’s an easy one.

glass building person

What do you think?

‘Tall’, maybe?

If you did well on these tests, then it is likely that you are a creative person and possess some particular qualities. Creative people tend to be:

• curious and inquisitive;
• good listeners;
• observant;
• explorative.

‘I have no special talents, I am only passionately curious.’

Albert Einstein

‘Curiosity about life in all of its aspects, I think, is still the secret of great creative people.’

Leo Burnett

Does this sound like you? Whether it does or it doesn’t, the good news is that creativity is something that we can all continue to cultivate and release from within ourselves. If you want to enhance your creativity, then you might want to develop some of the qualities listed above, and it would seem that a great way of doing just that is via the practice of mindfulness. There is a growing arm of research looking into the relationship between mindfulness practice and creativity, and here’s what some of it has to say.

This is all certainly excellent to know. It would seem that mindfulness can really stimulate our creative side and also help us to get creative by increasing our chances of noticing when we are in the optimal mood state for creative endeavours. This is all great news for our performance at work, as well as our stress levels, sense of satisfaction, inattention and burnout while on the job. But before we rush on to practise more mindfulness and get our creative funk on, let’s first take a closer look at the creative process in a bit more detail.

The creative process

In order to be creative at work, to think in new ways or in an unusual combination of ways, finding new patterns, connections or solutions, we need to fire our imaginations. But as we said, that alone is not sufficient. Imaginative ideas, then, need to be able to be produced in some way either in a service, artefact or result. To be creative, you need to not only have ideas, but you need to also then act on them. Furthermore, how you act on them, to whom and when are also absolutely critical if you want your ideas to have wings. Therefore we have outlined several steps necessary in the creative process within the exercise which follows. Have a go at working through this creative process for yourself right now by reflecting on your answers to each step in the exercise (we have provided some example answers to help you along).

Exercise 4.2: Work in progress

Seven steps to the creative process

1. Outline your purpose: What is my goal or purpose? (To make a spaceship for Mum)
2. What is my motivation? (To free up my creativity and see Mum smile)
3. Imagine the possibilities: What are my ideas? (To use washing-up bottle and tin foil, scrap metal, visit Mars, steal ride-on toy from outside Asda, etc.)
4. Filter your ideas to what is practicable: What is workable? (I only have 50p, better use the washing-up bottle)
5. Develop your clarity: How do I communicate these? (I draw diagrams and make a model)
6. Enhance your confidence: Am I ready for this? (I read Chapter 3 and I am breathing mindfully)
7. Target your audience: Who do I communicate these to and when? (My Mum after she’s had a sherry)

Take note: If you skip a step in this creative process, you may end up in trouble. Here’s a classic cautionary tale from the world of psychology:

‘In 1619, Italian philosopher Lucilio Vanini was burned alive for suggesting that humans evolved from apes. Over two centuries later, popular society still reserved its sharpest contempt for evolutionists, as illustrated in this caricature of Charles Darwin, published in The Hornet in 1871. Yet a literal interpretation of Genesis started to unravel long before Darwin published On the Origin of Species and The Descent of Man. Europeans were deeply disturbed by the anatomical similarities they saw between themselves and apes, and they struggled to find logical explanations.’

(Retrieved from: www.strangescience.net/stfor2.htm)

Also, we do advise you to take a good look at your confidence (see Chapter 3), because if you put yourself out there and dare to be creative there will be many times that not only your ideas get rejected or scorned, but also you might make mistakes along the way – but don’t worry, you’ll be in very good company.

‘In William Golding’s (1911–1993) novel Lord of the Flies (1954) one character, Piggy, is teased by the other boys because he is fat and wears glasses to correct nearsightedness. Later (Ch. 2) they use Piggy’s glasses as a burning glass to start a signal fire. What is wrong here? Nearsightedness is corrected with negative (diverging) lenses. A positive (converging) lens is necessary to focus sunlight. Therefore a burning-glass must be positive. Piggy’s negative eyeglass lenses would not work.’

(Retrieved from: www.lhup.edu/~dsimanek/whoops.htm)

All those English literature students across the world will agree: we’re glad he wrote the book anyway and we forgive him, don’t we?!

You may like to revisit the questions listed in the exercise above whenever you need to engage with the creative process, to help you map out your steps in a useful way. But, let us now look specifically at the sticky parts of this process and how mindfulness can help us with those.

Creativity and vulnerability go hand in hand

First off, we’d like to remind you of what we just said, as, if you are going to be creative, you really must be prepared to fail. It is often our unwillingness to experience vulnerability that dries up any trickle of creative juice that may be there, just bubbling below the surface. The fear of our ideas going down like a lead balloon can lead to a billion and one excuses for why we are ‘just not the creative type’, or why we won’t pitch any creative ideas even if we have them (there’s that perfectionism again). Brené Brown speaks of ‘vulnerability as the birthplace of innovation’ … ‘without vulnerability how can we innovate?’ (check out a short video with Brené Brown on this topic listed in the ‘Useful resources’ section at the end of this chapter). If failure is not an option for you, then it is highly unlikely that you will ever find yourself being creative at work. The truth is that being creative, putting yourself and your new ideas out there is a scary place to be, and you WILL feel vulnerable. So if you value creativity, it seems that you will need to be courageous also, as vulnerability and innovation are inseparable and most certainly poured from the same vessel. As we have said, if you lack the confidence to face feelings of failure and rejection, please revisit Chapter 3, as your willingness and confidence to experience discomfort and vulnerability will be crucial to help get your creative juices flowing once again.

What else is possible?

‘Creativity is a gift. It doesn’t come through if the air is cluttered.’

Often attributed to John Lennon

Mindfulness, with its simple instruction of seeing into the nature of reality as it stands, right in this moment, is already a great challenge to habitual, fixed and narrow ways of thinking. Rigid thinking is a contraction of viewpoint which really hinders creative thinking. The problem here is that our minds tend to run on autopilot, repeating and reinforcing the same patterns of thinking, experiencing and associating time and time again. This can make it extremely difficult to break free from habitual ways of seeing the world and generate new and novel viewpoints to a range of work-related dilemmas that can arise day to day.

Have a go at trying to solve the puzzles in the following exercise. Notice how hard it can be to think outside the box and to release your creative mind (try not to jump to reading the answers until you have given each question some good consideration). Notice how the mind tries to make sense of our world in its usual habitual way, holding on to the logical, obvious, tried and tested ways of seeing the world and how challenging it can be to free up our thinking from these rehearsed viewpoints.

Exercise 4.3: Work in progress

Thinking outside the box

Q: A man rides into town on Friday, stays one night and leaves on Friday that same day.

How is that possible?

(A: Friday is a horse.)

Q: An ordinary American citizen with no passport visits over 30 foreign countries in one day. He is welcome in each country and leaves each one of his own accord.

How so?

(A: He is a mail courier who delivers packages to the different foreign embassies in the USA. The land of the embassy belongs to the country of the embassy, not the USA.)

Q: A father and son have a car accident and are both badly hurt. They are both taken to separate hospitals. When the boy is taken in for an operation, the surgeon (doctor) says ’I cannot do the surgery because this is my son’.

How is this possible?

(A: The surgeon (doctor) is a woman. She is the boy’s mother.)

Q: A man is alone on an island with no food and no water, yet he does not fear for his life.

How come?

(A: He is a policeman on a traffic island.)

Q: A man marries 20 women in his town but isn’t charged with polygamy.

How can this happen?

(A: He’s a priest; he is marrying them to other people, not to himself.)

Q: A riverboat filled with passengers suddenly capsized, drowning most of those on board. There were no other boats close by. The riverboat was in good condition, the weather and river were calm and there was no carelessness on the part of the crew members.

Explain.

(A: The boat was travelling along a river in India and a large snake fell on to the deck. The passengers all rushed to one side of the boat, so overturning it. This is apparently based on a real-life incident reported in the World Almanac).

‘I think 99 times and find nothing. I stop thinking, swim in silence, and the truth comes to me.’

Albert Einstein

Problems only remain a problem if we continue to feed them with our repetitive, habitual thinking. When you step back from a busy mind, creativity is there and able to naturally flow again. Mindfulness practice helps us to disengage from repetitive and relentless thinking patterns and instead be more curious, to notice new things and give up preconceived and rehearsed mindsets, thus unleashing our natural creativity. This is supported by scientific evidence. Take a look at these two studies:

So, along with keeping stuck in old habitual patterns of thought and ways of seeing the world, what else can get in the way of our creativity? Well let’s take a look.

Creating balance

As we have already covered, anxiety, rife in the workplace, tends to severely hinder open-mindedness and the mind instead fixates and obsesses as a way of compelling but ineffectual problem-solving. There can of course be many anxiety-triggering factors within the work environment which can all be detrimental to work performance and creativity, and included among these is the way in which we can relate to one another. We will come back to team dynamics a little later (in the next chapter) but for now we thought it would be of interest to hear a little more about how creativity specifically can suffer when there is an imbalance towards a less civil and, dare we say, more hostile working culture.

Falling victim to acts of incivility at work has been shown to negatively affect creativity. In a series of studies^7,8 participants who were treated rudely by others were 30 per cent less creative than others who were not. When the victims of rudeness did come up with responses to what they might do with a brick, their ideas were less original and imaginative and more logical than others who were not treated rudely, for example they said ‘build a house’, ‘build a wall’, ‘build a school’ while others who were not subjected to rudeness from others responded with ideas such as ‘sell it on eBay’, ‘use it for a goalpost for a street soccer game’, or ‘decorate it like a pet and give it to a kid for a present’ (brilliant!). So it would seem that if we want to ensure the optimal conditions for creative flow, we’d do well to keep an eye on how we are speaking to one another at work. Balancing out any stress-induced rudeness with more civil, courteous and kind actions seems the way to go.

Creativity and innovation are also likely to flourish in a work environment where a sense of fairness and respect for individuality flows throughout the company culture. In an article published in the Harvard Business Review (which you can find a link to in the ‘Useful resources’ section at the end of this chapter), Teresa Amabile describes ‘how to kill creativity’ as a manager at work and suggests that the stress that arises from a lack of autonomy can be a real creativity flattener for employees. She advises:

‘People will be more creative, in other words, if you give them freedom to decide how to climb a particular mountain. You needn’t let them choose which mountain to climb. In fact, clearly specified strategic goals often enhance people’s creativity.’

(Teresa Amabile, 1998; for full article see ‘Useful resources’ section)

So it would seem that a certain amount of autonomy, but balanced with leadership, can take a team quite far along the creative road.

In short, high-stress environments can restrict creativity. This can occur to such an extent that some companies have attempted to redress this in other (novel and creative) ways: by instilling playful and quirky features in their offices, for instance:

‘Employees of product development company Davison work in a life-sized toy racetrack, tree house and big boot in the eccentric office space named Inventionland. Other quirky features of the 75,000 square foot work space include a waterfall, pool, rocky cove and castle complete with turrets and a drawbridge.’

[from www.weneedofficespace.com, see ‘Useful resources’ for full details]

Playfulness can promote plasticity of the brain, helping to strengthen a particular brain state which gives rise to creativity. When we are playful our brains release dopamine which is rewarding and reinforces our playful and exploratory nature, further increasing our chances of seeing things in a new light. Although we often try to separate work from play, from a neurological perspective bringing some fun and games or novel approaches to tasks into the work arena would actually seem to make good sense for business. When it comes to the generation of creative thoughts and innovation, having a good time with colleagues, joking around together and even allowing time for a bit of ‘idle’ daydreaming may not be such a waste of time after all. A bit of playfulness or simply attempting routine tasks in a fresh and unusual way can stimulate our explorative and creative minds while on the job. By injecting a bit of fun into our work we bring the part of our brain alive that is conducive to creativity: we are more likely to see things from a different perspective; we are more likely to innovate.

Now, letting our hair down or stepping outside of our usual frame of reference may work for some of us, but for others this can just increase the sense of pressure, inadequacy and discomfort. So there is no need to unleash the artistic temperament within by bouncing around the office on a space-hopper, while drinking wheat grass juice, and proselytising about Nietzsche, especially if no one else gets it (just taking some time to relax, cracking a joke or two with some colleagues or inventing new ways to approach a routine task may at times be just enough to get the creative juices flowing once again). Remember also that being overly ‘loose’ or ‘out there’ and presenting ideas in an unstructured and uncontained way may not be the most effective way to get the job done, even if it might seem quite freeing (or just plain mad). The process of creating of a working system, theory or design is extraordinarily valuable in allowing those systems, theories and designs to be constructed, reproduced and ultimately improved upon (if possible). In essence, clear communication and formulation as an aspect of the creative process becomes a way of allowing social groups, ideas or products time to assimilate, to be found of value or not and to be accepted or ultimately rejected. However, if we just allow things to remain completely stable, then we are also at risk of stagnation and inertia. Again it’s all about balance.

Your creative endeavour needs tempering with the purpose of that endeavour and is therefore, in business, inextricably linked to the unique goals of that particular company and what it is they are producing (services, ideas, products, etc.). Clear goals and intent, which are easily transmitted to others, make the creative object replicable, which is absolutely necessary for spreading ideas, concepts and products. As such, creativity, with movement, becomes innovation:

‘Innovation is creativity that ships.’

Often attributed to Steve Jobs

Motivation for the inspiration of your innovation without complication

Remember that the particular focus of a creative process may not be your great passion, but it is nevertheless important to know what is motivating you to engage with this process. Lack of motivation will find you procrastinating and drained of inspiration. If you can find a wee spark of joy, interest or energy, you can then harness that with mindfulness and this can carry you through the inevitable dull or challenging parts ahead. For example, updating the company policies and procedures may not set your world on fire, but you might find an improved level of clarity and standardisation around equality and fairness in the workplace very motivating. To identify a form of motivation, even if it is the pay-cheque waiting at the end of the month, will really help you through.

Exercise 4.4: Mindful on the job

Sparking the inner fire

The following exercise is a further development on the ‘Deciding how we choose’ exercise from Chapter 1. With some idea of mindfulness under your belt, you can begin enhancing your skills of referring to the present-focused sensations which arise in the body and using these to deepen your inquiry and self-awareness.

For this practice you need only identify a task ahead which requires motivation. Frankly this is anything, otherwise we would simply atrophy. Examples might include: updating company policies and procedures, reviewing the minutes from your last meeting, phoning a client, designing a new web page, going to the water cooler for a drink, getting the train home, etc. Let yourself know that whatever arises is exactly what you are seeking right now; everything is welcome; you do not need to be, think, feel or sense anything else than this, just as it is.

1. Feel your feet on the floor and the contact you have with any supporting surface (floor, chair, wall, etc.).
2. Scan your body for areas of tension or unpleasant sensation; do this quite quickly, just sensing in a broad brushstroke from your toes up to your head.
3. Scan your body now for any areas of softness or pleasure, again, in a generalised way, not getting too hung up on any particular area.
4. Scan your body a third time now for any areas that feel neutral, numb or lacking in any particular sensation; again doing this from your toes to your head quite swiftly.
5. Now bring the specific task to mind. Allow yourself free rein to observe any thoughts or images or emotions that should arise. Allow these experiences to linger for a moment or so.
6. Ask yourself ‘As I sit here observing my body, what motivates me to do this task?’
7. See if your body, mind or emotions reply! You don’t need a right answer, just look for what arises: any thoughts, emotions or bodily sensations. The clue has just arisen.
8. Repeat steps 1–7 as many times as you like.

This is obviously not a guaranteed formula for getting an answer, but if you find nothing much there, then clearly you can see that your motivation is low and you are very unlikely to find inspiration without it. If you feel stuck or frustrated with the exercise, then that is also a clue as to your feelings about the task. Don’t panic! You can always do the exercise again; with practice, your attunement will become more subtle and you can then identify more easily what comes and use that to discover motivation. On the other hand, if you continue to find nothing or only obstructive thoughts, sensations or emotions, and this is a task that for some reason you really must complete, then you really might need to acknowledge that and gain support with this task from colleagues, delegate it to someone else (see Chapter 5 for more on delegation), change the task, or even invent a motivation (e.g. give yourself a treat when you complete it).

Along with these tips for keeping motivation alive, we’d also advise that you make efforts to recognise even small gains and wins along the way as you continue to work on your project or task. Keeping a record of your progress and what you have achieved day to day, even if these seem the smallest of accomplishments, can help keep your positive emotions alive (about yourself and what you are doing) which will help you remain motivated and creative. So if you notice you have done something that has moved you along (even if it’s not what you had planned to do), something that matters to you or the people you care about and/or work with, then keep track of it. When you feel stuck and demotivated with the task at hand, revisit this log which may help keep your motivation alive for the sake of further inspiration and creation. Remember that creative ideas are more likely to arise when you are motivated to work on something. You are unlikely to feel motivated if you don’t find your work interesting, involving, exciting, satisfying or challenging in some way. So try your best to look for that source of motivation and keep it alive in your mind.

Even if you find that you have more motivation than a scooter ride down Mount Everest, it still won’t completely address underlying difficulties in generating creative thinking. We might plan endlessly, clarifying goals, finding meaning and purpose for our endeavours and be raring to go, but with no good ideas we may still be left a bit clueless, lacklustre and confused. So what next?

Unleashing the creative (without the space-hopper)

Sitting about moping, berating yourself for your lack of genius and comparing yourself unfavourably with the talents of others is doing nothing for you (remind yourself of the detrimental effects of self-criticism in Chapter 3 if you need refreshing). If this is all sounding a bit familiar, then our following four tips might also help to reignite your creative flare and keep it burning brightly:

1. Refresh your skills.
   You might find that keeping abreast of developments in your area of expertise or even reading up on some new skills that lie outside your strengths may help to spark new associations and generate some novel ideas for the task/s at hand.
2. Seek out differing perspectives.
   Speak to other people working in different areas to get their perspectives. Don’t just seek information from your own field. There’s really no need to hold back with this one; you may find that looking outside of your own industry for inspiration, or maybe talking to someone with very little (if any at all) experience or knowledge of your work may be the very thing that helps you to shift perspective and free yourself from a mental block.
3. Immerse yourself in unfamiliar experiences.
   Sticking to what you know, and what is tried and tested is unlikely to inspire you. Take up new hobbies, do things you are not familiar with, and even try out new foods – maybe something that you didn’t like when you were younger. You may find that having new experiences will help to generate new perspectives and connections between ideas.
4. Take your time and don’t rush creative decisions.
   New ideas may pop up at unlikely times when you least expect them to. You may find that it’s when you are thinking of something completely unrelated that your mind suddenly gives you that fresh new perspective on the task that you’ve been struggling with for so long. So don’t pressure your mind into solving problems right away. Instead give your mind some time to find its way while it collects new information and joins the dots. Have faith in your mind’s creative ability while you watch it do its job. So, try your best to hold off making a final creative decision until you really have to make it.

If you find that you are still stuck, even after trying to free your mind in these ways, we’d say that it’s definitely now time to give your brain cells a break before they blow, and try going for a walk.

‘All truly great thoughts are conceived while walking.’

Friedrich Nietzsche

It’s OK, that’s where the Nietzsche quotes end. Nevertheless, walking has a fabulous evidence-base as a great method for freeing up creative thinking. On a physiological level, walking increases the rate of oxygen to the brain, like any physical exercise, which in turn helps to improve memory and attention and decreases the rate of decline in neurotransmitters. Unlike more strenuous forms of exercise, however, the relatively slow cadence of walking means that the central nervous system is enlivened but not overstimulated. Our inner speech has been found to align to the pace of our thoughts – so if you are feeling mentally racy, angry or fired up, then try gradually slowing your pace. Mentally sluggish, low in mood or uninspired? Then walk a little faster. Add to these findings the power of mindfulness, and mindful walking can become an easily accessible tool in the cultivation of deeper insights, intuitive thinking and creativity.

‘People usually consider walking on water or in thin air a miracle. But I think the real miracle is not to walk either on water or in thin air, but to walk on earth.’

Thich Nhat Hahn

Exercise 4.5: Mindful on the job

A refreshing stroll

Take a walk; it might be in the park (see below) for a double stress-buster, along the corridor to the water cooler or the photocopier, to the canteen/your favourite café for lunch, or through the streets on the way to work or home. In this way, the practice might be a one-minute stroll each way to getting a glass of water, or a twenty-minute lunchtime amble: any length of time is fine. Start with Part 1 of the exercise below to bring the mind into the task and focus yourself on the present. Then try Part 2 to allow the mind to expand and develop breadth; this will help free up your creative thinking. Alternating naturally between Parts 1 and 2 will allow you to play with the balance of being focused and clear and then opening awareness out to include broader sensory experiences.

Part 1: Walk in

1. To help you focus, if your mind is wandering somewhere other than where your feet are, you might like to silently count your steps from one to ten.
2. One … I am lifting and placing my right foot.
3. Two … I notice my left foot lifting and moving.
4. Three … I feel the ground beneath my right foot.
5. Four … I feel the ground beneath my left foot.
6. Five … I am breathing in as I step forward.
7. Six … I am breathing out as I step forward.
8. Seven … Just this one step.
9. Eight … Just this one moment.
10. Nine … Just walking.
11. Ten … Just walking.

Part 2: Walk out

1. Noticing your feet contacting the ground in the rhythm of your walk.
2. Feeling the sensations of clothing and/or air against your skin as you propel forward.
3. As you walk, being aware now of the temperature of your body generally.
4. Noticing the movement of the feet, then the legs, the torso, the arms and the head as you move.
5. Becoming aware of sounds passing and arriving as you walk; just let your mind open to these.
6. Taking in the sights, the colours, movements and textures of the visual world around you.
7. And now, noticing the smells, scents or taste sensations. Allow these to come into your awareness and to pass on.
8. Free your attention and notice where it chooses to alight on the experiences of this present moment.

Walking spaces

Walking around outdoors really is a great way to tickle the fancies of your muse and it also has so many other benefits besides (recall the study on increased performance after ‘gazing at greenery’ in Chapter 2). So it might be a wise move to peel yourself away from your desk as often as you can (at least once a day – even for 5–10 minutes) as well as trying to incorporate more walking into your journey to and from work. Here are a few interesting facts about walking:

• Walking, like other physical activities, releases endorphins which improve mood and reduce stress and anxiety and improve your sleep.
• Walking, as a form of physical exercise, not only reduces the risk of depression but is also at least as effective as antidepressant drugs in treating mild and moderate depression – and has positive rather than negative side effects.
• Although only a preliminary study, Cook and Croft, two researchers at the University of Oklahoma, recently installed a temporary walking meditation labyrinth, using a theatrical spotlight, in the university library. They wanted to assess the effects of walking mindfulness on students’ stress and mental and bodily fatigue within a limited space. Comments from respondents stated that they found it was ‘Surprisingly peaceful. Very quick stress relief’, and also that for some ‘Concentrating on my walking was very freeing’ (you can read an interesting article about this work listed in the ‘Useful resources’ section at the end of this chapter).
• A small but growing collection of studies suggests that spending time in green spaces – gardens, parks, forests – can rejuvenate the mental resources that man-made environments deplete. Attention is a limited resource that continually drains throughout the day. A crowded intersection – rife with pedestrians, cars and billboards – bats our attention around. In contrast, walking past a pond in a park allows our mind to drift casually from one sensory experience to another, from the trickling of water to the rustling of reeds.
• These great thinkers were also renowned for their love of walking: Aristotle, Wordsworth, Dickens, Henry David Thoreau, SØren Kierkegaard and Beethoven.

If freeing your backside from being welded to the office chair has still done nothing to free your mind, then there are plenty more ways to lift yourself from the mental rut you may be in. Conversely, the first of these, after having a good walk, that is, is to work on your acceptance. Having writer’s block, falling out of love with your muse, finding life dull and work uninspiring, may well all be perfectly natural parts of your experiences, utterly logical and just as things ‘should’ be, given the circumstances. Facing up to things being a bit drab (including yourself) might be the very ticket to beginning to unweave the knots around your creative thinking, and we do know by now (don’t we?), that beating yourself up about wanting things to be different (including yourself) ain’t gonna work. The key to this one is accepting that you’re in the doldrums.

‘You weren’t thinking and you weren’t paying attention either. People who don’t pay attention often get stuck in the Doldrums.’

(Juster, 2008)

Leaving the fog alone

Sometimes, looking more clearly into the present moment might just allow us to face up to the bleak, cloudy, grim weather front we are sitting in (mentally or physically), wishing we were anywhere but here or anyone but this. In fact we work so hard to deny, resist and defend against reality that instead of accepting things being ‘grey’, we tend to get stuck and actually hinder our journey through this weather front.

Stories like Tom’s illustrate the natural ebb and flow of emotions and their accompanying reactive behaviours that often occur in our lives. If we step back from trying to stop ourselves feeling (especially ‘negative emotions’ but it could equally be true for ‘positive’ ones) and un-attach ourselves from the accompanying stories, we also liberate the mind from fixed points of view, leading to enhanced creative thinking. Without allowing ourselves to progress through a spectrum of emotions, like Tom, we can get stuck. Once we feel and allow space for what is difficult, painful or dull and let ourselves embrace that experience fully (by mindfully paying attention to bodily sensations, for instance), we can let the cr*p drop to the floor and become the fertile ground for something new to actualise and grow.

The creative cycle

According to a branch of psychological theory known as personal construct psychology (PCP), proposed by George Kelly (1905–1966), our definition of reality is based on our subjective, phenomenological perception (‘construction’) of the world around us (‘events’), and this is what has meaning to us in our lives rather than any objective reality that may exist independently of ourselves.

Either we must loosen our constructs in order to accommodate a new event, i.e. increase their range of convenience, or tighten the construct to preserve predictability, i.e. decrease their range of convenience. This process is called the ‘creativity cycle’; it is a continual cycle of change and reformulation of events (see Fransella and Dalton, 2000).

Mindfulness invites a flow and a creative loosening of having to see things (events, ideas or objects) in a limited way. Through the exercises already presented in this book, all asking you to recognise this tendency of the mind to grasp hold of certain ways of operating in the world – to recognise this and to stop meddling in the endless construction of fixed views – we are already awakening to a new form of creativity. By not insisting that the world should, must or ought to be ‘like this’, we instead allow ourselves to experience the world (ourselves included) as it actually is, in this very moment. When we start to look deeply into that, we uncover the constant constructing and deconstructing that the mind does in order to try to make sense of the world. Let’s consider this with this next exercise. You can do this at your desk, in an open-plan office, on your commute to or from work: anywhere will do.

Exercise 4.6: Mindful on the job

Here-ing sounds

1. Listen in to the noises around you right now.
2. Identify one sound and name and label it.
3. Notice what you have chosen to name it.
4. Is there another possible way to also label and name this sound?
5. Can you let go of this sound and of labelling it now and hear afresh?
6. You may notice the mind looking for definitions of the collection of oscillations, vibrations and variations in sound around you. Hear this experience too as a sound within the mind. You can choose to tune in or tune out like a radio.
7. Notice how you can tune in to a particular noise, or broaden out to include all or many of them. Practise this for a moment.
8. In relationship to this or these sounds right now, see if you can sense between the sound being external to the ear/mind and internal to the ear/mind.
9. What happens to the sound, the label of sound and the absence of sound when you no longer focus on them?
10. Listen to the sounds around you, knowing there are sounds, that somehow you know this, that there is a construction of meaning around sounds and then there is an end or change to the sounds and a corresponding deconstruction of meaning. This is the mind grasping for meaning. Notice how you can free yourself from fixating, how you can play with the mind’s habitual urges.

The mind looking for meaning or making sense is not ‘wrong’. But in doing an exercise like this, we can see that we are not bound by any particular way of hearing, seeing or sensing the world around us; at any moment there are multiple variations of possibility. This recognition can not only free our creativity, but also liberate us from confined or automatic thinking, and as such we can then be open to seeing the world and our work afresh; even the seemingly mundane can become magical. We can then begin to see mindfulness as a tool to enhance our awareness of the full spectrum of experience. At one end we develop focused concentration, stabilising the mind to see the present moment more clearly. Repeated practice of retuning the mind to a focal point (such as the breath) gradually trains our attention, taming the inherent ‘busyness’ of our minds to find rest, singularity and depth of attention. At the other end of the spectrum, mindfulness can allow us to cultivate a spacious quality, freely flowing as our attention opens to the unfolding of our daily experiences. With practice, we then become increasingly skilled at regulating our attention, assessing the appropriate skill we require in a given situation and recognising when the mind feels too tight or, conversely, too loose. We gradually develop what can be termed as a ‘discriminating awareness’, very different from the tendencies to judge or criticise as right/wrong, good/bad, etc., and instead find a deeper wisdom within ourselves.

‘By stilling your mind through concentration, opening your awareness to whatever is present, and letting wisdom emerge, you can learn to live a joyful and skilful life – one that keeps stress to a minimum and promotes internal and external peace.’

(Smalley and Winston, 2010, p. 166)

That’s where this chapter ends, folks. We hope that in reading through the chapter and trying the exercises listed above, you have come to realise that your creativity is always there. Even if you don’t tend to feel so creative at work, you can tap into more creativity whenever you want – it is something that resides in us all. Remember that creative ideas aren’t reserved for a special group of people; they can in fact come to anyone of us if we increase our awareness with mindfulness and choose to change our mindset. In opening up our minds and really noticing the abundance of possibilities in this world, we soon discover that creative ideas are not necessarily something that we need to conjure up, but are in fact out there already, just waiting for any one of us to recognise and bring into reality and fruition. Yes, you can access your creativity and realise its full potential within each and every moment through mindfulness practice. Ellen Langer, a Professor of Psychology at Harvard University, writes:

‘Creativity is not a blessing some special few are born with or receive from above. Our creative nature is an integral part of our daily lives, expressed through our culture, our language, and even our most mundane activities.’

(Langer, 2005, p. 4)

Just before you go on to read the list of the top take-away tips from this chapter, you might like to read the following poem, attributed to Chanie Gorkin, a 14-year-old secondary school pupil from Brooklyn, New York. We think that this poem is not only an excellent example of creative work but it also reminds us that when we dare to break free from habitual ways of responding to our world and instead take new perspectives, our experiences can be dramatically different. Hopefully this poem may inspire you (as it does us) to get creative. Also, if you like this kind of thing you may also like to take a look at another similar piece of creative writing, this time by two renowned ACT therapists, Jason Luoma, PhD, and Jenna LeJeune, PhD, from the Portland Psychotherapy Clinic in Oregon, USA (you can find a link to a video of their poem in the ‘Useful resources’ section at the end of this chapter – we think it’s awesome!).

Worst Day Ever? Chanie Gorkin

Today was the absolute worst day ever

And don’t try to convince me that

There’s something good in every day

Because, when you take a closer look,

This world is a pretty evil place.

Even if

Some goodness does shine through once in a while

Satisfaction and happiness don’t last.

And it’s not true that

It’s all in the mind and heart

Because

True happiness can be attained

Only if one’s surroundings are good

It’s not true that good exists

I’m sure you can agree that

The reality

Creates

My attitude

It’s all beyond my control

And you’ll never in a million years hear me say

Today was a very good day

Now read it from bottom to top, the other way,

And see what I really feel about my day.

Chanie Gorkin, www.poetrynation.com

As always, here are your summary top tips to go from this chapter:

We hope you are enjoying the book so far and that this chapter has enhanced your enthusiasm to continue your exploration into the many interesting facets of working with mindfulness. Next we are keen to take a look at our relationships with our colleagues at work and what mindfulness can offer us in how best to succeed in teams. So whenever you are ready, let’s take a look …

• Admin (2011, July 9). Quirky space with a pirate ship and lollipops [from needofficespace.com]. Retrieved from: http://www.needofficespace.com/servicedoffice-blog/quirky-office-space-with-a-pirate-ship-and-lollipops-9850.html
• Amabile, T. (1998, September). How to kill creativity [Harvard Business Review article]. Retrieved from: https://hbr.org/1998/09/how-to-kill-creativity/ar/1
• Brown, B. (n. d.). Vulnerability is the birthplace of creativity [video file]. Retrieved from: http://www.inc.com/kimberly-weisul-andrew-maclean/vulnerability-and-innovation.html
• Cook, M. and Brennan Croft, J. (2015, June). Interactive mindfulness technology: A walking labyrinth in an academic library [College & Research Libraries News]. Retrieved from: http://crln.acrl.org/content/76/6/318.full
• Luoma, J. and LeJeune, J. [portlandpsych]. (2013, March 20). The ACT therapist (Acceptance and Commitment Therapy) [video file]. Retrieved from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n1HlSezYyzs