Now What? Unlocking your Creative Insights

 “Now What?” is a phrase used to express boredom, a lack of topics to discuss, or a greeting after a brief to intermediate pause in conversation, according to the Urban Dictionary.

The question “Now What?” in this post, denotes exhaustion with a specific position. It expresses a desire for something better. When you’ve accomplished your objectives, the question “Now What?” motivates you to go for something bigger.

After accomplishing your goals, the next question you should ask is “NOW WHAT?”

Now What? is a type of inquiry that appears to elicit a progressive mindset and acts as a motivator and grease for moving the gears of creativity.

What is creativity?

Robert E. Franken defined creativity as the tendency to generate or recognize ideas, alternatives, or possibilities that may be useful in solving problems, communicating with others, and entertaining ourselves and others.

How do you develop your creative insights?

According to Janet Fitch, to develop creativity is to find the place of curiosity in yourself again, the curiosity you had as a child, that sense of play and wonder.

To develop our creative insights, we will look at Graham Wallas four stages of creativity.

Wallas in his book The Art of Thought clearly defined the creative process using four well defined steps; preparation, incubation, illumination, and verification; we have also added two stages as proposed by other authors; concentration and intimation process.

The Stages of Creative process

1.  Preparation

This is the stage where the problem is defined. During the preparation stage, the problem is “investigated in all directions” according to Wallas.  

Is it possible to prepare for creativity? A question often asked. Many are of the opinion that creativity is a gift and cannot be learnt. But new evidence suggests that creativity can indeed be learnt. The question can also apply to the fact that people think that ideas are one offs. Although ideas have the ability to fly in and out and sometimes come unexpectedly, it is essential you prepare yourself for their arrival.

The preparation phase entails research planning and developing the right frame of mind with the right level of attention.

^{“The educated man has, again, learnt, and can, in the Preparation stage, voluntarily or habitually follow out, rules as to the order in which he shall direct his attention to successive elements.”}

– Graham Wallas

2.  Concentration

The concentration stage as suggested by Botella et al. (2011) makes it possible to focus all your attention on those solutions deemed to be adequate, and to reject the other solutions. 

Analysis and ideation are critical ingredients in the concentration stage. Analysis is when you take a step back to identify relationships between ideas and the importance of each idea. Ideation on the other hand helps you to develop the concept behind your idea while also developing alternative ideas.

3.      Incubation Process

The incubation process is a time of solitude and relaxation, where idea associations take place at a subconscious level.

This stage, according to Wallas has two divergent elements; the “negative fact” that during Incubation we don’t consciously deliberate on particular problems and the “positive fact” of a series of mental events taking place which Wallas termed “foreconscious” and “forevoluntary”.

^{“Voluntary abstention from conscious thoughts on any problem may, itself take two forms: the period of abstention may be spent either in conscious metal work on other problems or in a relaxation from all conscious mental work. The first kind of Incubation economizes time and is therefore often better”.}

– GRAHAM WALLAS

For the optimization of the of the incubation stage, Wallas opined that;

“We can often get more results in the same way by beginning several problems in succession, and voluntarily leaving them unfinished while we return to others, than by finishing our work on each problem at one sitting”.

This is particularly helpful; we must understand the concept of beginning several problems in succession; this strikes me in a great way; instead of compiling or waiting for problems to be compiled, I think it’s crucial that you begin each problem as they come.

4.      Intimation Process

Intimation is described as an “association-train” in a fringe conscious level, between conscious and unconscious levels

5.      The Illumination or Insight

This is the insight stage. Wallas based this stage on Poincare’s concept of “sudden illumination” which relates to the flash of insight that your consciousness can’t conjure itself and the unconscious self can only produce the elements gathered during the preparation stage.

^{“If we so define the illumination stage as to restrict it to this instantaneous “flash” it is obvious that we cannot influence it by a direct effort of will; because we can only bring our will to bear upon psychological events which last for an unprecedented time. On the other hand, the “flash or click” is the culmination of a successful train of association which may have lasted for an appreciable time, and which has probably been preceded by a series of tentative and unsuccessful trains. The series of unsuccessful trains association may last for periods varying from a few seconds to several hours.”}

– GRAHAM WALLAS

6.      Verification

The verification stage involves practically testing the validity of your idea. This stage requires a conscious and deliberate effort in ensuring that the idea is adequately prepared for, incubated and illuminated.

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