Well, the intelligence agencies may have just the answer. It's called neurolinguistic programming (NLP). It's good enough to train personnel for MI5, the CIA and the KGB. Neurolinguistic programming is a form of therapy that makes us more self-aware and able to alter set patterns of thought and behaviour that conspire to defeat us. As proponents of NLP will tell you, most of our creative blocks occur because we are either too associated with something, or too dissociated from it. We freeze where we are. We can't move forward because we are too hung up on what we did in the past. Our new ideas don't seem as great as our old ones.
So NLP lets you co-opt the past and escape its tyranny.
Here's how. Start by recalling the moment you cracked the best strategy or wrote the best ad. What conditions did you have that inspired thought?
What time of day was it? Were you in the office, at home or on a plane?
What were you drinking? What were you wearing?
Now wouldn't it be great if you could hit that precise level of inspiration again, whenever you needed it, without literally re-creating the same conditions?
(At this point, I must confess I once tried the literal route. Because I had written my best ad at 11 on a Sunday morning, every Sunday morning at 11 o'clock for the next two years I tried to do another.)
One of NLP's most passionate creative advocates, best-selling author David Morrell, creator of Rambo, suggests a way to apply it. Recall every detail, every nuance, of that magic moment of inspiration, and as you do, squeeze your shoulder, or press behind your elbow. In doing so you will have connected your most creatively productive past to your creatively challenged present. Now take a "break state". Get up, leave your desk, go for a walk, give your emotions a rest. When you come back, sit down, squeeze your shoulder or press your elbow again, and remember that moment when you created the best work you've ever done. Thanks to the neurolinguistic transfer, you'll be able to start work afresh and hit your previous peak.
Morrell offers a further refinement. Dissociate from the problem, he says, by dissociating yourself from the page itself. Tell yourself what you've written is okay for now. Then close your eyes and imagine the page in your mind. Big isn't it? Now make it smaller, and smaller until it's no bigger than a postage stamp and eventually disappears. Now, open your eyes, and scroll forward until the screen is blank. Squeeze your shoulder or press behind your elbow, recall your most creative moment, and get back to work. Another suggestion from Morrell: get help from the person you most admire. Summon them up in your mind. If you're a creative, imagine Tim Delaney or John Hegarty or Neil French is standing right beside you, watching you work. If you're a suit or a marketer, imagine Ian Batey or Sergio Zyman. Talk to them ...
"Neil, none of these headlines work."
"Yes, old boy, there's not an idea in any of 'em."
Ask his advice. "So what would you do?"
"Well if it were left to me, old thing, I'd say it should read ..."
Bingo! You've got an answer. (The only problem is, how do you list his contribution on the award credits?)
The same scenario works for suits. Imagine looking up at Ian Batey and saying, "Ian, what do you think the proposition ought to be?"
"You've got to do what we did for SQ. You've got to hang your hat on one thing."
"But which thing, Ian?"
"Well for my money it's pretty clear, it's ..."
Bingo. Thanks, Ian Batey!
So squeeze your shoulder, or press your elbow, and have a great year.