Awe as a Method to Fuel Creativity and Innovation

When was the last time you experienced awe?

As an emotion, awe has the capacity to grab your full attention, enliven all your senses, and expand your habitual boundaries of perception.

It's likely you've experienced awe at some point in your life and experienced its affect.

My first experiences of awe were unintentional. As an avid hiker, I enjoy spending time in nature. I've seen many breath-taking mountain vistas all over the world. Each view evoked a mystical experience of connection to a vast and beautiful world. It was as if a veil of perception was lifted and I saw with fresh eyes a new reality. Time seemed to stand still and I was flooded with feelings of meaning and joy.

Stunning nature scenery is just one elicitor of awe. Others include a beautiful sunrise or sunset, gazing at your sleeping newborn, listening to an exquisite piece of music, watching an athlete perform an amazing feat, and the view of earth from space.

Many scientific studies on awe have been conducted in the past 16 years and data shows that psychological effects of awe go well beyond the spiritual. Awe has many practical and work-related benefits.

Studies show that awe is accompanied by a reduced focus on the self and more on the greater whole, a feeling of available time, reduced bias and increased critical thinking.

There's much discourse today about unconscious bias within the workplace and it appears that awe is beneficial in reducing bias.

A 2017 study by Danvers and Shiota found that experiencing awe made people less likely to rely on internalized scripts. People who watched awe-inducing videos were less likely to falsely recall details of a story they heard and less likely to rate plausible false details as true. These results suggest that awe reduces reliance on internal knowledge when mentally processing new information. More research is needed to better understand these early findings, yet they are initially remarkable.

In today's fast-paced world, what we most lack is time. Early scientific indicators show awe may help with that.

One study found that people induced to feel awe more strongly responded to statements that time is plentiful and expansive than a control group induced to feel happiness (Rudd, Vohs, & Aaker, 2012)

Contrary to my original thought of awe as infrequent and unintentionally produced, I've come to discover that awe can and should be deliberately and intentionally generated.

By evolving our mental framework from awe as an occasional, peak experience to an everyday, small moment experience, we can harness the power of awe in our work and personal life.

It starts with setting a goal to seek awe daily.

Here are a few suggestions to get you started:

1. Get outdoors. Take a 10 minute walk in the woods or lay at the base of a tree and look up.
2. Study an image of nature. A photograph is effective in cultivating the feeling of awe. Add a favorite image as your screen saver and spend a few minutes to take it in.
3. Watch a stunning video. Find something that grabs your attention. A favorite of mine is the live HD video feed from the International Space Station
4. Geek out on science facts. Did you know that the hydrogen atoms in your body were produced in the big bang, and the carbon, nitrogen and oxygen atoms were made in burning stars? Search online for mind-blowing facts about the human body or space.

Imagine what would happen if you started each team or department meeting with one of the above suggestions?

Science has backed what we intuitively believed about awe --it's a creativity and innovation superpower. Go and harness some today!

References:

Danvers AF, Shiota MN. Going off script: Effects of awe on memory for script-typical and -irrelevant narrative detail. Emotion. 2017 Sep;17(6):938-952.

Rudd M, Vohs KD, Aaker J. Awe expands people's perception of time, alters decision making, and enhances well-being. Psychol Sci. 2012 Oct 1;23(10):1130-6.

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