Well, what d’you reckon? Is nature good for creativity?
It certainly seems that way, doesn’t it? I’ve often had really great ideas when out on walks or cycle rides, and I know some of you love nature for that reason, because you’ve told me.
Indeed, one client related a tale—ironically out on one of my Walk & Talk sessions, in the hills around Abergavenny—of a difficult design decision that had been bothering him and his colleague for ages. They’d had numerous meetings, tried many different things from brainstorming sessions and nothing had worked.
Frustrated, they sacked it all in and went out on a bike ride together… only to realise the obvious, much simpler solution, right there and then.
It’s pretty amazing when that happens.
Does this mean we should conduct all of our business outdoors? What is it about nature that brews this mystical alchemy?
Well, maybe nature simply gives us permission to stop using the analytical, thinky-thinky left brain Thought System 📦 for a bit, and connects us to the bigger picture: wisdom, creativity, source-energy.
(Indeed, it may actually force us to do this, because we’re not sat in our work environment, in front of a screen or a desk.)
But it’s not nature itself that’s doing it. It’s you – who you really are.
As Michael Neill, author of The Inside-Out Revolution famously once said to a skeptical seminar attendee,
“You are the infinite creative potential of the entire f%$&ing Universe – deal with it!”
😂
It’s a case of correlation, not causation, and maybe there are a few steps you can take, to help you, when you seem a bit stuck:
- Be wise to these correlations; get your own evidence of things that seem to help
- See that it doesn’t always work – i.e. that it’s not directly causal
- Relax into the possibility that who-you-are is creativity itself, and that’s what’s actually being exposed here
- Start depending on these principles in any situation.
Because sometimes we can’t step outside, or meditate, or get some exercise…
…but who-you-are is always there, just itching to help out.
💟
Giles
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Giles P Croft
More steps you can take, to ‘get the juices flowing’ so to speak.