The Anxiety-Curiosity Switch: How to Redirect Your Mental Energy for Creativity

James Clear, author of the bestseller Atomic Habits, outlines a clear process for being creative and connecting ideas: 1) gather material, 2) intensely work over the material in your mind, 3) step away from the problem, 4) allow the idea to come back to you naturally, and 5) test your idea in the real world and adjust it based on feedback.

• Divergent and Convergent Thinking: Creative thinking is a two-part process involving divergent thinking (generating novel ideas) and convergent thinking (narrowing down to the most useful idea).


• The Role of the Control Network:
  
  The "control network" plays a crucial role in this process by enabling flexible thinking, inhibiting distractions, and ac

pure, childlike sense of wanting to discover and learn can’t coexist with fear. How to do it: In any situation where you feel afraid, ask yourself, “What about the situation can I become authentically curious about?” Let your curiosity lead you. When you notice fear creeping back in, go back to the question, What about this situation am I curious a

release. The trick is to figure out ways to explore the edges of possibility that surround you. This can be as simple as changing the physical environment you work in, or cultivating a specific kind of social network, or maintaining certain habits in the way you seek out and store information.