By Lisa Hochgraf
People often ask how I manage to get up at 5:45 a.m. at least once a week to go swim laps. The answer is simple: "It makes my life better." By improving both my mood for the day and my sleep for the night, my regular early morning swims make me a more capable editor (and parent).
Such early morning ritual is apparently essential to many creative types who believe innovation and creativity depend on hard work and discipline.
Take Twyla Tharp. Modern dance choreographer extraordinaire, Tharp describes in her 2003 book, The Creative Habit, how she gets up at 5:30 a.m. every day, puts on her workout clothes and hat, and hails a New York city cab to take her to the gym. She says this ritual sets the stage for her creative day, preparing her mind, body and soul to later walk into a "white room" with some of the best dancers in the world and create a dance for them to perform for a world audience.
Tharp cites the debate about whether creativity is a transcendent, inexplicable act of inspiration--the proverbial "light bulb"--or the result of hard work. Then, she comes down solidly on the side of hard work.
"Creativity is a habit, and the best creativity is a result of good work habits," she writes in the book. "That's it in a nutshell."
Tharp cites another famous creative as an example, writing: "As Mozart himself wrote to a friend, 'People err who think my art comes easily to me. I assure you, dear friend, nobody has devoted so much time and thought to composition as I. There is not a famous master whose music I have not industriously studied many times.'"
Tharp also notes that "even Mozart, with his innate gifts, his passion for music and his father's devoted tutelage, needed to get twenty-four youthful symphonies under his belt before he composed something enduring with number twenty-five."
In her book, Tharp provides exercises to help readers practice being creative--warm-ups if you will to exercise the creative muscle. What are your rituals and "hard work" practices for getting your creative juices going? Or, do you think that great ideas just happen? Please share in the comments.
Lisa Hochgraf is a CUES editor.
Creativity and innovation expert Scott Isaksen believes in innovation as a process. Isaksen will lead the opening general session at CUES Symposium: A CEO/Chairman Exchange, slated for Feb. 2-6 at the Fairmont Orchid, Kohala Coast, Big Island, Hawaii.
Be sure to read this free Credit Union Management magazine feature Isaksen wrote for credit union board members, "Put Creativity in Concrete: Why innovation belongs on the board agenda."
