[excerpted from, 9 Keys to Creativity: Positive Psychology ©2023]

Whether school was a positive experience for you or not, whether you think of yourself for whom learning is easy or difficult, whether you seek out new ideas or stay with what you know: this key is for you.

I would go so far as to say, all humans have a love of learning. It just takes countless forms.

When we’re young children, toddlers even, we’re consumed by learning — that natural learning of how the world, and our own bodies for that matter, function. Some children are more curious than others, and of course, some are born with mental challenges. Even so, on some level, a desire to learn dwells in each of us.

In a UK study by Nocon et al. (2022) of neurodivergent adults, specifically those on the autism spectrum, love of learning was among the 5 most frequently reported character strengths; this is consistent with the wider body of autism literature. Umucu et al. (2022), in a large study (11,699 subjects) of these character strengths across a wide range of disabilities, also found that love of learning was among the top five.

Why is this a key for enhancing our creativity?

Being creative is one of the methods of learning and experiencing the world, which is why it’s in the wisdom category of virtues. In being creative, we try new things, do things differently, solve problems, invent things, make art, consider new ideas. All of this relates closely to our desire to learn, to experiment, to see what we can do.

Wagner et al. (2020) found that love of learning consistently demonstrated a relationship with flow and enjoyment, which as we’ve seen relates to our quest for creativity, and also with achievement. This superseded a student’s actual cognitive ability – that is, the love of learning was more important than intellectual capability – across the spectrum of learning environments.

Love of learning is also protective, correlated with happiness and wellbeing – even amid a pandemic. Diponegoro and Hanurawan (2022) demonstrated that all 5 character strengths of the wisdom virtue, including love of learning, creativity, and curiosity as well as judgment or open-mindedness and perspective, positively influenced the happiness and wellbeing of a young adult / university student population in Yogyakarta during the recent Covid-19 pandemic, a time when their young lives were upended. It’s this young adult cohort worldwide that’s considered by researchers to be one of the most impacted by the restrictions and social isolation of that period, according to OECD, World Bank, and others (Defker, 2022; Walsh, 2021).

What forms can this love of learning take? And how can we develop it, at any age, as a key to accessing our creativity?

I’m always saddened by the child who hates school – and angered by the system (for it usually isn’t the teacher, though some can be lazy) that dictates achievement tests and rankings and other methods counter to a joy of learning.

A love of learning often begins with, “Let’s see what I can do here” or what my body can do, or whether I can sing, or bake bread, or find my way through the forest, or make a new friend or nurture a love affair, or develop an entirely new concept. It’s stretching our muscles – mentally, physically, emotionally, socially. It’s our growing, and our experiencing. When I try a new food, I’m learning whether I like it or not – and whether I’ll seek it out again. I might try to learn how to make it myself. Or I’ve learned that spicy food isn’t to my liking. Any new activity, whether for pleasure or because it’s required of me by my employer, is a challenge: can I learn how to do this? Can I learn the information or skill that I’ll need? Surely, I’ll learn whether I like it, am good at it, or if it’s for me.

Every single day we’re learning. We often hear, “Learn something new each day.” (I’ve just written it in the previous chapter, on open-mindedness.) But in reality – we are. Already. (We can still use it as a consciously applied tool, however.) This key isn’t just about learning, though, but about developing our love for it. Does learning something new excite you? Is it appealing even if the topic itself is not? (Do you feel anticipation when you need to learn something new about math, or accounting, in order to file your taxes?) If you enjoy the sensation of expanding your mind, adding to your ever-growing cache of new experiences, experimentation and discovery, then it really doesn’t matter the topic – that love of learning for its own sake precedes all. (This doesn’t mean we enjoy doing our tax form.)

I begin each day, before rising from bed, with mini-lessons in 2 languages – and the next day, in 2 other ones, and so on, in a rotation among fourteen languages in total. This is a mental exercise to awaken, enliven, and maintain my mental capacity. It’s also because I happen to enjoy language learning. (I’m not fluent in any of these, though my proficiency varies among them.) For someone else, it might be Sudoku. Or poetry.

So if this key to creativity is the love of learning, how can we help that love to grow? The same way that any love — or for that matter, anything — grows. We feed it.

In a new love affair, that first blush of romance when both parties simply can’t get enough of the other, there’s excitement in the air. Even when we’re not with our new love, the air seems fresher, the sun brighter, people friendlier, the world a better place. We try to spend as much time as we can with the one we love, giving them gifts, doing things for them, sharing ideas, trying new experiences together. It’s the same with learning. The more time we give it, the more attention we pay, the more love we allow ourselves to feel, the more it will grow. Fall in love, just a little bit more, with learning today – learning just for its own sake, with no end goal or achievement (or competition) in mind.

Naturally, there are many things we study in order to achieve proficiency. (Language is typically one of those – unless you happen to enjoy a slow, dabbling sort of progression in a range from Chinese to Arabic to Russian, as I do.) We often need to learn something for our jobs or professions, for example, and studying ‘hard’ just feels like work. The love of learning, however, is when we are simply delighted that we learned something new. It not only lays down new neural pathways in the brain, excellent for brain health throughout the lifespan, but also stimulates the brain’s pleasure centers, making us want more of it. So – learn something new every day. More importantly, notice all those things that you’re already learning each day. Notice and celebrate them. And seek out more. (If you feel a time constraint, spend the first 5 minutes after waking on 1 language lesson via an app.)

There are times, and I’m certain it’s a common experience, when I suddenly realize how something should best be done, even a tiny thing, something I’ve done otherwise and perhaps less efficiently in my many decades of life thus far. I love those moments. I love when I discover that if I put the screw into the wall this way instead of that way, it works better. And I laugh with delight, that the thing I’ve been doing all my life just became easier or superior because I learned a new way to do it, often quite by accident. As the currently popular meme goes, “I was today old when I learned…”

So how do we cultivate our love of learning?

By learning within areas that delight us, first of all. Topics that we’re passionate about, areas that have always interested us but we never took the time to explore – yet, skills we’d love to acquire. By connecting our keen interest with what we’re learning, motivation comes naturally; the new knowledge gives us ever-increasing pleasure, even when it isn’t easy. From there, when we feel our love of learning for its own sake growing, we can more easily branch into areas that we’d like to learn but aren’t especially excited about, such as skills we know would be beneficial to us even though they don’t thrill us. And from there, it’s a short leap to things we aren’t actually interested in – but that we love learning purely for the sake of knowledge acquisition and brain development.

Love of learning. Many moments of delight. Every day. Learn something new today.

Exercises:

Find some quiet time and calm your mind. Sitting comfortably and with eyes closed, imagine yourself as a very young child – when the world was new to you. Feel the inquisitiveness as you learn about everything around you all at once. Sense the delight bubbling up from deep within you, as you begin to understand that the language you’ve newly acquired gives a name to everything that you see. Hold that giant seashell to your ear, sniff the air for what’s wafting from the kitchen, gaze at the stars, taste something for the first time, sense the soft blanket against your skin. Sit with this for a while. And when you emerge from your meditative state — write about it, make an audio recording, talk about it with someone, or in whatever way works for you, process it. And integrate that feeling of wonder, and joy.

Choose one thing you’ve always wanted to learn but have been putting off. A musical instrument? A language? Advanced calculus? How to grow a garden, or cut your own hair? Begin learning that one thing, embracing the fact that you’re finally getting to learn something you’ve long desired, feeling the joy and excitement. Sit with those feelings, recognize them, know them deeply. And after some time, choose another.

Laugh. Often. When learning, that is. As you learn something new, have difficulty pronouncing the word or remembering how to put something together, burn the cake, end up with a ridiculous haircut – laugh. Not only as a way of coping with the frustration that also comes in learning something new, but with sheer delight that you’re doing it. As we learn and are still far from mastery, we create our own comedic events. Normalize this.

Tell someone close to you about that new thing you’re learning. Ask their indulgence, that they listen to you without interruption (promise to do the same for them), and tell them all about it, with passion. You’ll feel that excitement welling up within you. Remember it.

Find others who share your passion. Even one other person, or better yet, a group. Pursuing this new knowledge or skill together with others equally passionate is contagious.

Move. Some of the things we want to learn are in fact movement – dance, exercise, a martial art. If not, then embrace movement as an outlet. When learning, take short breaks and move. It will not only refresh you for learning some more, but it will resuscitate your joy any time that it begins to wane.

Let go of your self-assumptions. If you believe yourself incapable of something (okay, after a certain age there may be a few things we can no longer do – but fewer limitations than we may think) – erase that from your mind. No, we cannot fly. (Really too bad about that one.) And we can’t breathe underwater. (Ditto.) But otherwise – let yourself go.

References:

Defker W (2022). The Covid generation: the effects of the pandemic on youth mental health.Horizon / European Commission. Retrieved at: https://ec.europa.eu/research-and-innovation/en/horizon-magazine/covid-generation-effects-pandemic-youth-mental-health

Diponegoro AM and Hanurawan F (2022). Creativity, Curiosity, Open Mindedness, Love of Learning, and Perspective Character Strengths in Students’ Wellbeing During the COVID-19 Pandemic. KnE Social Sciences 7:1, 93-98. https://doi.org/10.18502/kss.v7i1.10203

Nocon AS, Roestorf A, and Menéndez LMG (2022). Positive psychology in neurodiversity: An investigation of character strengths in autistic adults in the United Kingdom in a community setting. Research in Autism Spectrum Disorders 99:102071. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.rasd.2022.102071

OECD (2021a). Supporting young people’s mental health through the COVID-19 crisis.  Retrieved at: https://www.oecd.org/coronavirus/policy-responses/supporting-young-people-s-mental-health-through-the-covid-19-crisis-84e143e5/

OECD (2021b). Young people’s concerns during COVID-19: Results from risks that matter 2020. Retrieved at: https://www.oecd.org/coronavirus/policy-responses/young-people-s-concerns-during-covid-19-results-from-risks-that-matter-2020-64b51763/  

Umucu E, Lee B, Genova HM et al. (2022). Character Strengths Across Disabilities: An International Exploratory Study and Implications for Positive Psychiatry and Psychology. Frontiers in Psychiatry 13:863977. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyt.2022.863977

Wagner L, Holenstein M, Wepf H et al. (2020). Character Strengths Are Related to Students’ Achievement, Flow Experiences, and Enjoyment in Teacher-Centered Learning, Individual, and Group Work Beyond Cognitive Ability. Frontiers in Psychology 11:1324. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2020.01324

Walsh C (2021). Young adults hardest hit by loneliness during pandemic. The Harvard Gazette / Harvard University. Retrieved at: https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2021/02/young-adults-teens-loneliness-mental-health-coronavirus-covid-pandemic/

World Bank (2023). We are losing a generation: The devastating impacts of COVID-19. Retrieved at: https://blogs.worldbank.org/en/voices/we-are-losing-generation-devastating-impacts-covid-19