Spark Your Creative Process By Setting Limits

When it comes to accessing our creative genius, we tend to think we need more freedom — not to mention more money, more time, more of everything. But what if the answer wasn't more, but less? What if you could be your most creative because of the limits you impose, not despite them? 

I learned an important lesson about how creativity works when I took a poetry class in grad school led by a brilliant but nutty poet who looked like Boris Johnson wearing inside-out sweaters with holes in the pits. We studied and wrote in the ancient poetic forms—sonnets, villanelles, and others with specific rhyme schemes and rhythms.

While writing a sonnet is certainly not easy, I found that being focused on writing something within those limits challenged my skills in a whole new way. I was particularly proud of my sonnet.

One girl didn’t give herself the chance to try; she bowed out early in the semester, claiming that the poetic forms were…restricting her creativity. I think she missed the point. I also think she was an unimaginative dope.

And yet, how often have we all strained against restrictions, yearned for freedom, believing we could do more things, better things, if only we had more—of everything (time, money, talent).

The problem with wishing things, or that we, were different is two-fold:

One, you might stay hopeful, suspended in a state of toxic optimism (“Someday I’ll have time!”), nothing changes, and that’s where you remain.

Or two, you’ll feel hopeless, assuming you can never do anything, and end up right about that.

Neither of these end well. What if there was a way to work within limits, without feeling trapped by them?

How a lack of limits can undermine your creative process

The most creative people don’t get that way by wishing their way into different circumstances; they make do with what’s right in front of them, and with the limits they’re given. They even adopt limits for this purpose (no one’s “forcing” you to write a sonnet, for instance).

In fact, it’s more often the lack of limits that can be a problem. Bottomless resources and blank checks spelled failure for world-famous choreographer Twyla Tharp, who recalls in her book The Creative Habit the project that had no bounds, and which failed horribly because of it. In contrast, she was most proud of the project where time and budget were impossibly tight — because it forced her to be far more creative and resourceful.

Tharp writes, “Whom the gods wish to destroy they send endless resources.”

In his runaway bestseller The Four-Hour Workweek, Tim Ferris advocates for very short and very clear deadlines, citing Parkinson’s Law which says that a task will fill the time it is given. “The end product of the shorter deadline is almost inevitably of equal or higher quality due to greater focus,” Ferris writes.

Part of the reason we get stuck and unable to move forward in our creative process is not because we have limits, but because we’re in denial of them.

Oliver Burkeman, author of 4,000 Weeks: Time Management for Mortals, says that the reason we’re overloaded and overwhelmed is not because there’s just too much to do, but because we don’t want to face the reality of our limits, or finitude. In our state of utter denial we take on more and more stuff, believing we can do it all.

He calls this the paradox of limitation: “The more you try to manage your time with the goal of achieving a feeling of total control, and freedom from the inevitable constraints of being human, the more stressful, empty, and frustrating life gets.”

However, when we work with the facts, rather than against them, he says, “the more productive, meaningful, and joyful life becomes.”

Creativity is a game — and here’s how to play it

Without rules, there are no games—no poker or ping pong, no soccer, not even a decent round of checkers. That’s because rules provide the structure and conditions that make play possible.

“Games aren’t appealing because they are fun, but because they are limited,” writes game designer and professor of interactive computing Ian Bogost in his book Play Anything: The Pleasure of Limits, the Uses of Boredom, & The Secret of Games. We can’t play a game without accepting its structures and rules. That’s why it’s no longer a game if I simply steal Park Place or move my chess pieces wherever I want.

“Instead of seeing freedom as an escape from the chains of limitation,” he writes, “we should interpret it as an opportunity to explore the implications of inherited or invented limitations.”

This is, after all, what makes creative work “fun” — limits give us some necessary friction on which to sharpen and ignite our creativity. There’s a reason people pay to do escape rooms, and don’t pay to simply walk out of one.

What if the real problem is that you don’t have enough limits?

Why you may not have enough limits — and how they can up your creative output

Of course, you’re already contending with some very real limits, as we all do, in terms of time, money, our previous obligations, competing commitments. We all have a finite amount of attention to spend each day, and the most urgent tends to devour most of it.

If you’re trying to start or finish a project that matters to you, but which doesn’t “have” a real or actual deadline, well, I don’t need to tell you that it doesn’t get done.

And yet—you might actually benefit from a few more self-imposed limits.

This is why in my workshops I provide a writing prompt and a short, timed window in which to write: this manufactured urgency gets the wheels turning. The prompt isn’t an “assignment”; the idea is to train your mind on one object, topic, moment, or word (i.e., “a time you changed your mind” or simply the word “breath”), which nudges open the door to imagination and can trigger surprising memories or ideas.

You can practice this yourself right now.

I’m going to give you ONE prompt, and three different limitations. Ready?

PROMPT: An idea that won’t leave you alone.

TIME: 5 minutes. You can get a lot of thoughts out of your head in a short window, especially if you’re not doing five other things. Grab a notebook, start the timer and go. No stopping, no doubting, no thinking.

SPACE: Five pages. Rather than a timer, write for a minimum of five pages on this idea. It doesn’t have to be finished or ready to hit “send” on. This is not an essay or a business plan; it’s time to generate ideas and content. Keep going until you fill five pages with ink about your project or idea.

ACCOUNTABILITY: Set a meeting 24-48 hours from now with a friend or colleague. Your job is to present to them what you have been thinking about, and that’s it. You can ask for feedback or not, but remember their advice is not the point; sharing your idea is. What will likely happen is that not only will you be under a deadline to write something, but as you present and discuss it, you’ll have even more ideas.

Other rules to set to help you work faster and more easily — and why the Gateless Method works

The approach I use in my workshops and programs is one that changed my life ten years ago. It’s called The Gateless Method, created by Fulbright scholar, novelist, and developmental editor Suzanne Kingsbury, and is built on the back of Zen Buddhism and neuroscience research by people like Dr. Joseph Bogen, Dr. Kenneth Heilman, and Dr. Rick Hanson.

Dr. Heilman found in his work that during heightened creative thought the neurotransmitter norepinephrine, responsible for anxiety, low energy, and decreased focus, is greatly reduced. He also found that students who had low levels of norepinephrine were more likely to come up with novel ideas.

This method is designed to help reduce that flare of anxiety and keep you feeling safe and open—and we do it by adhering to a specific set of rules.

The rules have a purpose: To focus the mind and free up access to all the rich, creative fodder, memories, and connections that fuel ideas.

These limits create what we call a “container” for the work, simply because that’s what they do: Put boundaries around this specific space and time, governed by a set of rules designed to free the creative mind.

Without a defined container in which to work, it’s hard to feel “safe,” and easy for inhibition, self-consciousness, and doubt to take hold.

In this specific style of workshop, people are invited to share their work, and there’s another set of rules that you must follow:

• No disclaimers of your own work
• No criticism or suggestions
• No referencing the self when talking about someone else’s work
• No addressing the writer directly or by name; we refer to them as the “narrator”

The purpose of these rules is to focus attention on what’s working, which we can only do if the writer feels safe—from critique, from doubt, from the fight-or-flight stress response, allowing each of us to access our own creativity.

And if someone breaks the rules? You better believe I jump in to enforce them. Because they’re not actually limits if they’re not enforced. Typically if a rule is broken, it’s done out of habit, insecurity, and unintentionally. It’s hard to unlearn old ways, but the benefit of a new limit is that it presents a new challenge.

Do these rules restrict creativity? Hardly!

They actually allow us to be more creative, more quickly. We give the left brain some rules and structure to keep it happy, while the right side can roam free (and yes, I know this is a bit simplistic, but you get what I’m saying). And with a short window of time to work in, we simply slip past the critic to get our words on the page.

I’ve seen amazing things come out of those workshops. People not only create great work, but have dramatic shifts in their perspective on their lives and their relationships.

All because they were willing to accept what is and enforce limits on time and attention. We not only learn to look for what’s working, we begin to trust ourselves and our work.

The good news? You already have all you need to do your best creative work

There isn’t a person in any of my programs who believes they have enough of all the things they need — be that time, flexibility, or their perceived lack of things they think they need, like more talent or approval or motivation.

But they soon learn they don’t need any of those things, and they don’t have time to worry about them.

What they crave, and what makes them feel the most free, is learning to focus, something hard to come by in this day and age, and which really is just another type of limit, precluding attention spent on anything else. (Why procrastination actually helps you be more productive.)

We think we have no time, but we must have some if we’re always afraid of wasting it.

Here are a few ways to embrace the limits and stay focused — especially when you’re feeling like you’re flailing, unsure or “at loose ends” as my mother says (fraught, cranky, aimless).

• Notice the friction. Where are you feeling resistance to what’s happening, or not happening, right now? What feels like a drag and when? Is it that you feel too limited or restrained, or that you feel loose and unmoored? Get clear about it, and specific. Naming the issue can help you clarify it.
• Pay absurd attention. Bogost says we can’t appreciate the limits if we don’t get really granular in our awareness of them. What’s one way a current limitation or circumstance is obstructing or challenging you? Without wishing it were different, what can you learn about the structure, form, and nature of this limit that can allow for a new experience?
• Swim past the breakers. Rather than fight the tide, let it draw you out, beyond the breakers, so that rather than working hard against those limits, you can float along with them, and see where they take you.

“By refusing to ask what could be different, and instead allowing what is present to guide us,” Bogost says, “we create a new space.”

This isn’t easy; it requires a kind of creative discipline, not to mention a dose of Buddhist detachment. It requires you to let go of what you wish and accept things as they are. And this is in fact where your best ideas begin.

Accepting reality on its own terms is one way to acknowledge and benefit from limits that enhance your creative process. But believing in outmoded, limiting ideas about what you’re “allowed” to do creates limits that hold you back.

If you’re feeling like you can’t move forward and you don’t know why, it may be time to take a good hard look at what rules you’ve (unintentionally) adopted over the years - rules about what is possible for you, rules about the “right” way to do things — and rewrite those rules altogether.

Join me for Breakthrough — A program specifically designed to help you clear out the blocks. Learn more here.