the two skills of creative athleticism

"All creativity is an act of play," screenwriter and author Noah Hawley tells The Believer. (If only it always felt that way!) Regardless: "When an idea hits me, I'm like, Oh, I like that, and then what? There are a lot of people who go, Well, that's good, but could I do better?" That's a trap, according to Hawley. "I don't linger. I just go."

That's skill 1: the forging ahead, the lightness. Don't linger. Don't get mired in searching for possibilities. If it works, keep moving forward.

Skill 2: Amy Poehler recently interviewed Natasha Lyonne on Good Hang. As a young actress living in New York City, Lyonne, already a veteran of film and television but with no prior experience in theater or improvisation, observed SNL dress rehearsals. On the podcast, Lyonne recalls marveling at the comedic chops on display: good ideas axed without hesitation to make room for better ones.

"What is this weird, athletic sport of confidence?" Lyonne would ask herself. "This abundance, [this] idea of an endless supply...where you throw out genius ideas and just move on to the next day instead of lingering on something like a diary entry, Oh my god I wrote a sentence."

"One of the things about that training," Poehler, a former SNL castmember, replies, "is, you can't believe that your good idea is your last good idea. And, in fact, throwing it away is like a power move to remind you that the next good idea is right behind it. You cannot get too precious about anything. And you get athletic in terms of practicing coming up with an idea."

Creative athleticism. Your creativity requires conditioning, just like your heart or your lungs. This is why you don't want to lean too hard or too often on those ever-so-handy idea-generating machines now available on all our phones and laptops. Use it or lose it.

Skill 1: Pushing ahead over perfectionism and procrastination.

Skill 2: Generating ideas abundantly, holding them loosely, and letting them go fearlessly.

In both cases, you're mastering the simple act of letting go. Coming to terms, emotionally and intellectually, with the fact that ideas are fungible.

"We make the idea king," Poehler adds. "I'm much more into people and process."