FRIEDRICH NIETZSCHE once said, “All truly great thoughts are conceived by walking.” And he’s certainly not the only genius to associate creative thinking with going on walks.
In this short blog post, you’ll learn how some of the greatest thinkers used walking to bring new perspectives to their life and business.
A Creative Being Goes on Many, Many Walks
Nikola Tesla took long daily walks in a city park to stimulate his creative thinking. Steve Jobs consistently held “walking meetings” with his colleagues at Apple, especially when creative problem solving was required. J.K. Rowling has said that walking is the only reliable cure to writer’s block.
What is it about walking that leads to creative brilliance?
In a 2014 Stanford University study, researchers asked 176 adult participants to partake in a variety of tasks to measure divergent thinking (the thought process used to generate creative ideas). The team of scientists found that walking on a treadmill or outdoors boosted their creative output by up to 60 percent.
How can we make sense of this?
In a paper published in the Frontiers of Public Health, a team of researchers speculate that our capability for innovation developed alongside our ability to walk. Put differently, the complex brain structures that accommodated walking helped develop increasingly sophisticated modes of thinking.
Some Great Books on Creativity
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Creativity: The Psychology of Discovery and Invention
by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi
Creativity: A Short and Cheerful Guide
by John Cleese
How to Become a More Creative Being and Generate Your Best Ideas
One method that helps to stimulate my creative process is a two part cycle where I switch between periods of information overload and creative thinking.
If I’m facing a challenging problem at my digital marketing agency, I will read up on the topic, listen to an audiobook or two, and take a video course. Even though I often feel a sense of overwhelm at the end of this phase, I know that all the new ideas I learned are being stored in my subconscious. This is something I talk about in depth in this article on passive knowledge.
I then bring forth these ideas and connect the dots during my creative thinking phase where I go for outdoor walks and meditate.
What problems are you currently facing in your life or business? Let me know in the comment section below.