Last week I taught my creativity course at UCL for 87 first-year students.

Each morning I gave them a creativity exercise as a warmup and team-building activity.

And each morning the reaction was the same.

As soon as I finished describing the activity there was...silence.

Inertia.

A little bit of a "do I have to" vibe. (They are still teenagers after all).

But inevitably, two minutes later, the room was buzzing. Laughter. Energy. Engagement. Enjoyment. Creativity working its magic.

I've been reflecting on that pause. That moment when we decide how we're going to respond to the unexpected invitation. Are we going to lean in and give it a go? Or lean back and check out?

Personality psychologists would look at this moment through the lens of Openness to Experience, one of the "Big 5" personality traits, and one of the factors research findings have most closely associated with creativity.

In order to be creative, it is essential that we stay open to new possibilities. But that's easier said than done. I'm someone who prides themselves on being open-minded. And still, there are many moments when I struggle to stay open.

When my nervous system is triggered into fight/flight/freeze or when I'm laser focused on achieving a specific goal, my perception and cognition narrows dramatically and I can collapse into binary black-or-white thinking.

There's the part of me that thinks I already know it all. That I know best. The part that craves certainty, superiority or self-righteousness. A compulsion to rush to “cognitive closure” rather than rest in ambiguity. The fear of the unknown. Fear of judgement. Or fear of anything, really. Or simply status quo bias.

It can feel like a miracle any of us manage to stay open at all.

I've found three things that help me stay connected to my inherent openness.

First, understanding what openness means and what it doesn't mean. Being open-minded doesn't mean we need to descend into the morass of moral relativism, abandoning all hope of discerning right from wrong or truth from lies. I found V for Vendetta creator, Alan Moore's advice to writers incredibly helpful. He said we must have strong beliefs--a clear moral, political and aesthetic worldview. AND, it must be flexible. With empathy for those whose viewpoints differ, realizing that if we were brought up in their circumstances, we would likely have the same opinions. We should have a strong point of view, and also remain open to evolving it based on new information.

Second, actively seeking inspiring instances of openness. Recently, I came across one of the most exceptional examples of open-mindedness I have ever seen. In this 10-minute video, Shlomo Yitzchak shares his moving story of how he “got out of Zionism” and became an advocate for collective liberation.

At 20 he was studying in Jerusalem at an all-male religious nationalist seminary. He heard about a program where a Palestinian man would come to share his experience with the students and he decided to attend.

He was shocked by the man's story.

After the session Shlomo thought, "Why did no one tell me about this?" He went up to the Palestinian man to ask for "More, tell me more." When the man invited Shlomo to come to Ramallah, his "first thought was, 'If I go, you will kill me', because that was the way I was conditioned. Growing up, for me, Palestinians were terrorists. There was no possibility that a Palestinian was human."

But then he heard "a second voice", "a deep ancestral voice, and to this day I'm amazed at myself that I was able to challenge all of my conditioning with the second voice. A deeper voice. A deeper knowing. And that voice immediately said, 'Well, you've been told your whole life that this person was gonna kill you and that this person was a terrorist and he wasn't human. And he's standing right in front of you and he's the exact opposite of those things.'" Shlomo agreed to come to Ramallah. On his journey he witnessed first-hand the humiliation Palestinians undergo every day. He was harassed by IDF soldiers at a checkpoint along with the Palestinians. And he heard the stories of Palestinians in their own words. The experience transformed him into an advocate to "free Palestine for all people, everyone on the land".

He is not the only one. There are so many brave souls who are courageously questioning the dehumanizing narrative they were sold.

I find their stories so inspiring and humbling. I would love to think that if I were raised in their situations I would do the same, but the honest answer is I can never be sure. But I can let their stories inspire me to interrogate my assumptions. To challenge the status quo. To question authority. To listen to the deep ancestral voice that says we are all equally human. To say yes to new experiences that give me a chance to connect to people who have different backgrounds, and to stay curious about their stories. To have the audacity to imagine a future others deem impossible.

The third thing that helps me stay open is a mantra. I can't remember how I first came across it. But I treat it like a talisman. Something I keep in my pocket to touch in troubling times.

"I am willing to see things differently."

That's it.

Someone posts a comment that enrages me. "I'm willing to see things differently."

My perfect plan for a client workshop goes out the window. "I'm willing to see things differently."

I receive what feels like devastating feedback on a creative project. "I'm willing to see things differently."

It's like a wedge that keeps the door open just a crack, when otherwise I'd slam it shut. But that crack is often all that's needed to allow in the sliver of light that illuminates a fresh perspective and a new way forward.

Whatever our baseline level of Openness to Experience, there are so many things that can open us up or shut us down. Learning how to stay open is an essential practice for preserving access to our creativity.

I'm curious, what helps you stay open?