#ThinkfullyHabit: Get stuck in
Getting stuck can feel like a failure. It’s often the point when we give up, try something else or accept defeat. However, what if this is the very point when we should do the exact opposite?
The journey to new discoveries often includes a point near the beginning where people working on a problem are actually pretty stuck. As David Perkins, research professor at the Harvard Graduate School of Education outlines; “struggle and insight go together.” Take the example of Watson and Crick, who had many false starts when trying to figure out the structure of DNA, or Barbara McClintock, who before making the discovery of genetic transposition was perplexed by the way genes seemed to be able to turn on and off systematically.
“Being stuck is a very important thing. It stimulates the creative imagination. When we’re stuck the unconscious mind roams over lots of possibilities, goes outside of the box.”
WHY?
Alan Lightman looked into twenty five of the greatest scientific discoveries of the twentieth century* and found a similar pattern running through the way all of these discoveries were made. Crucially, getting stuck was a key part of the process – and it was by getting through this stage that they reached their breakthroughs. He found that all the discoveries started with working hard at the problem. Then they got stuck. Getting stuck acted as a catalyst that led to a change in perspective because they had to look at the problem in a different way. Importantly, it was this shift in perspective that allowed the breakthrough or new discovery to happen.
The implications? We should change how we think about getting stuck. Getting stuck isn’t a failure or necessarily the point to stop. It can be the turning point along the way to a new breakthrough. So rather than the end of the story, we should perhaps see it as simply an expected part of the journey.
As Lightman himself concludes, “don’t despair when you are stuck. In fact, I encourage you to get stuck. It gives you time to think: and you could be on the edge of a great discovery—great discoveries can follow periods of being stuck.”
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