Why Tomatoes Are Essential for Creativity and its Recipe

Essential for creativity frees the mind in a way that enables a person to absorb knowledge more easily. It makes processing learning more efficient.

As with other writers and creatives, I believe that a blank page is the greatest horror story I could ever write, believe me, I wouldn’t even want to see it. Just thinking about it gives me too much discomfort.

Every creative professional knows how dreadful it is to reach a point of what seems like an ellipsis— as if something was left out, omitted, just a big blob point of irrelevance. Creative profession or not, you’ve been there too right?

This article will talk about aspects of creativity, one of the VIA character strengths. Creativity can be a gift, but it can also come with a horrible feeling in the event of a creative block— a time when it seems like you have reached the limit of your imagination and you’re just stuck. This piece would share about why tomatoes are said to be the answer for creative blocks— and here enclosed is the recipe for it.

Creativity and Essentials Traits

Creativity is considered as one of the psychological strengths in positive psychology that entails how originality should come hand-in-hand with usefulness. Simply put, it is about inventing ideas that can be used or utilized.

Writers, painters, and musicians are just some of the “imaginative specialists” we have in the industry. Their jobs require them to render a concept in 1000 ways or more without any repeat, they must represent the same idea again and again—in the most unique way possible. A stark example would be me, writing this article. Below I will share with you how I came up with this article.

Essential Traits

The following are considered to be essential traits that contribute to one’s innovative thinking: Energy, intelligence, and discipline

• Energy: Creative people are said to have a huge supply of mental and physical energy, however, they also tend to expend these into a great deal of time contemplating and planning.

This article took about 6 hours, 2 hours of research, reading, and planning, an hour of rest, and yes three hours for actually writing it.

The two-hour planning and outlining are mentally exhaustive that there is a need for a breather like a time to recharge for writing it also consumes a lot of mental power. It’s not easy to put into words what you want to express, I step back a little and breathe before diving into the great momentum of doing cerebral work.

• Intelligence: It is believed that intellect plays an important role in creativity. In a study of gifted children, it was found out not all people with high IQ are actually creative, but a high IQ is needed to bring about ingenuity. A fresh perspective is vital.

I did mention that creative professional’s jobs aim to represent an idea in a thousand unique ways, always trying to outdo themselves or the concept of others. Trust me it’s not boring nor is it routine work. It’s like every day is a challenge to yourself, hoping to see actual improvement in your craft.

• Discipline: Inspiration does not come by in an instant. One has to have a set of guidelines to bring about the skill.

In creating this article I first searched for a central topic that would sound witty, from there I would just let it flow.

Soon enough I was adding sections in my article, planning which parts would go first, what to include or not. It is not every day that a bright idea comes to me so sometimes it takes more time to conceptualize but no matter how long it takes, I do not give up on it— unless another better idea comes up.

Psychology of Creative Blocks

You can’t use up creativity. The more you use, the more you have.

-Maya Angelou.

I could attest that this is somehow not true. Even our alphabet runs out, what more about ideas right?

I mean if you have to present an idea in more than 10 ways and it has to be different every time, I’m quite sure that not only will it be exhaustive but it would also drain you up good. Inevitably, the creative block comes for everyone.

I paint as a hobby and hopefully as another source of income as I improve in my craft. I don’t practice every week and I get envious of those who get to have a constant inspiration to create. It took me to realize that having months of not painting or even sketching was a part of my creative process. Usually, when I start to paint again, I’ll get to sustain that for about a week or two then I’ll lose the motivation again. But it works for me because whenever I create again, despite the lack of practice I get to create a better artwork than the previous.

I now accept that the creative process may be different for everyone but I want to practice so I get to have consistency and hopefully find my style. But as my mentor told me, sometimes an artist doesn’t get to define their style, and it doesn’t mean that they are any less of a creative. I just super hate creative blocks.

The same goes for writing. Writing is a challenging mental process that requires experimentation and discovery, but it is not every day that writing a piece would a breeze. There are times when finishing a piece would be such a drag but you have to stick to it and do it anyway.

Enlisted below are some of the common factors that may cause a creative block:

Fear

A writer may hesitate to start writing because they are scared of exploring their new ideas in fear of criticism and judgment from others. This doubt about the viability of their thoughts may become a hindrance for them to achieve breakthroughs in their designs and concepts. Fear is also usually the main hindrance to help flourish our other psychological strengths.

Perfectionism

Everybody wants to perform at their greatest, to give all their best for their pieces. This sense of precision can be an act of defense mechanism to protect oneself from harsh critique and failure. Unfortunately, being consumed in this pressured thoroughness can be unfavorable when this meticulousness becomes an interruption in one’s creative process.

Self-criticism

Ourselves are our hardest critics, it’s not easy to please ourselves. Most of the time our self-depreciation holds us back from actually doing and starting something. WE often look and compare ourselves to others, and sometimes we forget to appreciate our progress, uniqueness; we sometimes fail to see the potential that others see in us. At times we’d feel like we’re not good enough for ourselves and we betray the realistic aspect of our current skills and capabilities.

External pressure

Pressure usually comes when we have to do a creative task and we are not in the zone or mood. We’ve experienced this in our academic years when teachers or parents force us to make creative outputs by force, without taking into account if we are mentally ready to do the task.

Recommended Recipe to Cure Creative Blocks

Now I will share with you the answer to creative blocks as I have tried – it’s tomatoes and you may find the ‘recipe’ at the end of this article. This was developed by Francesco Cirillo in the 80s, it is called the Pomodoro Technique (Pomodoro is the Italian word for tomato). It’s a time-management and productivity technique that he devised using tomato-shaped kitchen timers in his time. Here is the ‘recipe’ to help you conquer your impediment to creativity. Try this recipe below and enjoy it!

This technique forces you to stay on task and resist distractions. 25 minutes is enough time for you to dwell on a task and put your full attention on it – but it is not too much time for you to get bored or stressed out that might slip your focus away from your task. The Pomodoro technique has long-term benefits over time. When you get used to working in Pomodoro, you can have a good grasp of how long a task takes when done without procrastination and distraction. This trains you to be efficient in prioritizing tasks throughout the day. The Pomodoro technique works best when if you will be super strict and will stick to your pomodoros. This means anything you have to do other than your work (like sipping coffee or going to the bathroom) will have to wait until the break. You might be surprised by the number of tasks that you could do in five minutes.

• Short breaks would be perfect for making your drink or taking a snack, a brisk walk around the room, stretching, and stepping back to see what you’ve done so far to help you reorganize your tasks.

• Use your long breaks to get away from work altogether and do something entirely different – you can take a quick nap, cook, pet your dogs, take a bath.

The Pomodoro technique promotes productivity and it is with productivity that you get to be inspired with creativity. This technique has so far helped me when I am on my writing job especially when I get the blocks now and then. Creativity is considered in Positive Psychology as a character strength under the virtue of wisdom and knowledge. Character strengths are “positive, trait-like capacities for thinking, feeling, and behaving in ways that benefit oneself and others”.

Benefits of Creativity

So what can you gain from creativity? The following are just some of the ways of how a person could profit from innovativeness:

Power of Choice: As a character strength, it creates an opportunity for conscious engagement with the world. It allows us to take risks in trying out new things or settling for what’s comfortable. There is liberty in exercising or succumbing to our reservations.

Individualism: We learn to be aware of our feelings and thoughts, we take independence and proclaim control to aid our self-expression.

Confidence in one’s ability: Ingenuity is recognizing our talents and skills, it is valuing our efforts, be it displayed or not in the public. It is a form of validation that does not need external affirmation, it comes from ourselves alone and it is enough.

Stress Release: It is not a new thing to hear about how stress is relieved through creative activities. Not only is it fun but it also introspective. It is a break from the habitual routine we have in our homes and work, it is a time that you get o express yourself with the use of your hand, mind, and energy.

Improves the analytical thought process: Creativity stimulates our brain and challenges our problem-solving skills. It dares us to take a different viewpoint of things to translate to others from a perspective that is our own.

Essential for Creativity is just one of the 24 character strengths that I will tackle in my articles. The concept of character strengths was conceptualized to provide positive psychology a common set of the language of positive institutions. [wce_code id=2] [wce_code id=3]