When you announce you are going to implement a large change programme, it won’t be long before anxiety and stress raise their heads as people wonder how the change will affect them. If you have articulated your vision very clearly on what you want the change to achieve, people will very quickly compare that to the current reality and realise there is quite a big gap to jump. It’s the emotion generated by that realisation which is classed as ‘creative tension’. It’s in this state of mind that that we are most productive as we start to think of ways to close the gap because it’s the gap that is causing discomfort.
By explaining this to people and referring to those feelings as creative tension rather than stress/anxiety it helps them to channel innovative thoughts instead of scaring themselves with talk of stress. Stress after all is caused by fear that comes from being in an uncomfortable position.
Robert Fritz describes this in his book, ‘The Path of Least Resistance’, as a rubber band and as it is stretched it creates tension, and the tendency of the rubber band is to pull back to resolve the tension in the system. Imagine that your vision is represented by your right hand and your current reality is represented by your left hand and you have a rubber band around both hands. The greater the gap between your vision and your reality, the more the rubber band will stretch, the greater the tension that will develop, and the stronger the motivation and energy will be to resolve that tension and close the gap.
The mind is naturally motivated to close the gap so it releases more energy, resource and creativity to assist in finding ways to do that.
In her book, ‘Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain’, Betty Edwards explains how we usually tackle problems with our left-brain-directed thinking first, and only if the left brain can’t solve the problem, or if it’s a problem the left brain doesn’t like to work with, will the left brain hand the problem over to the right brain. When we generate creative tension, the left brain is more willing to hand the problem over for the right brain to get involved as well, and that’s when you start to find more creative solutions.
Photo by Allef Vinicius on Unsplash
Controlling creative tension
Creative tension can feel pretty nasty, especially if you’re not well practiced in using it. It can feel a lot like anxiety and it can be easy to feed this anxiety with all your personal fears, to start to get anxious about your anxiety, and get wound up with so much anxiety and stress you can’t think clearly.
Creative tension motivates us to act urgently to reduce the tension by finding ways to resolve the issue. The problem is most of us relieve creative tension by lowering our vision so we reduce the gap between our vision and our current reality. This successfully reduces the tension, but it also reduces your motivation and creativity to make your vision a reality, and of course, you’re not going to create what you really want. At best, you’ll be successful in creating the “reduced” version of your vision.
To manifest creative tension and use it to your advantage you need to follow these points:
1) Clearly articulate your vision in as much detail as you can.
Imagine what the vision you want to achieve looks like. Add as much detail as you can and run it through your mind over and over until it’s like watching a film several times; you’ll find you get familiar with it. Only think about what you want and not about the things you are trying to get away from i.e. current reality.
2) Be honest about your current reality
If you’re trying to pretend that you’re somewhere you’re not, you’ll reduce the creative tension and risk choosing irrelevant strategies for resolving creative tension. Watch, listen and pay attention to your present. Ask for feedback and opinions of your current reality from other people to get more angles on your understanding of it. Question all your stories about reality so you can peel away the self-deception and the stuff that’s interpretive and get to the core truth of what your current reality is all about.
3) Next steps to bridge the gap
You won’t have the full solution in your mind but by continually thinking it through bit by bit the steps will come. Break the gap down into manageable steps and then move forward one step at a time. Remember the saying “How do you eat an elephant?” Answer: “One piece at a time!”
By understanding how creative tension can work for you it will become a welcome tool for solution providing and all but eliminate anxiety and stress.
Once you get really good at it it’ll feel a bit like a Jedi mind trick— who wouldn’t want to ‘Feel the Force?’