Make Fear a Nine Day Wonder,
Motivate Yourself with Fun

Have you heard something referred to as
a "nine day wonder"? The phrase refers to
something that causes a sensation for a
brief period of time and then fades into
obscurity. The origin of this phrase is
usually tied to the nine-day reign of Lady
Jane Grey (1537-1554) as Queen of England. This
reluctant queen met an untimely fate. More
on that later...

I added a new Fun Commandment recently to
address a very pesky and persistent nine day
wonder we all face - fear as a motivator. Fear
is a great motivator...but only for a very brief
period! Then it does worse than fade into
obscurity; fear adds to our load of stress
and pressure. So I'm calling for an end to
this nine day wonder's reign with my Fun
Commandment, Motivate Yourself with Fun
Rather than Fear.

Motivating yourself with fun rather than
fear pays big dividends in myriad ways. Making
this choice accelerates your ability to
communicate, rests your brain, lowers your
stress, increases your tolerance for pain,
among other things. In this article,
however, I am focusing on one incredibly
important and impactful side effect of this
Commandment - using fun to motivate yourself
increases your creativity.

Creativity is an ability highly sought by
businesses and employees alike. Creativity
is trumpeted in every mission statement and
praised by every CEO for good reason - we
know that creativity brings breakthroughs! Since
the ability to create breakthroughs is both
a highly sought after and also a highly
marketable skill, creativity gets a lot of
deserved attention.

Yet there are still many myths to dispel
about creativity. One of the biggest myths
is that creativity is fueled by time
pressure. Time pressure is an example of
fear-based motivation because it involves
trying to escape a negative consequence
rather than moving toward a positive
outcome. Deadlines are a reality, but using
fear to fuel our creative juices has the
opposite effect.

The alternative is to use fun as our
motivator. Theresa Amabile, head of the
Entrepreneurial Management Unit at Harvard
Business School, has been studying
creativity for 30 years. For the past 8
years she has collected nearly 12,000 daily
journal entries from 238 people working on
creative projects in seven large
corporations. She and her team scoured
journals for moments when people struggled
with a problem or came up with a new idea. The
following rules for using fun to motivate
creativity are inspired directly from
Amabile's research.

1. Deadlines are fear-based; if you want to
   be creative you must give yourself
   an "incubation period." Deadlines create
   distractions that rob your attention. Even
   with a deadline looming, to get creative you
   should focus on your work in an environment
   protected from distractions.
   
2. Competition is fear-based; collaboration
   is fun-based. If you want to amplify your
   creativity, foster the confidence to share
   your ideas with others. Be open to debate
   with collaborators and create a
   noncompetitive environment. You'll hit new
   heights of creativity!
   
3. You are more likely to have a creative
   breakthrough if you were happy the day
   before. When you're happy, which usually
   happens as a byproduct of fun-based
   motivation, the research clearly indicates a
   great chance of your happiness "incubating"
   overnight to show up as a creative idea the
   following day.
   

By the way, Lady Jane Grey was reluctant to
take the throne of England because she was
only 15 years old and she held unpopular
Protestant beliefs. Her reluctance was well-
founded; the young Queen relinquished the
crown after just 9 days, plead guilty to
treason, and was eventually beheaded.

Let's give fear, as our motivator, the same
fate. Fear becomes a nine day wonder when
we replace it with fun today!

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Some Humor for the Week