Make Possibilities Happen Summary and key ideas

Make Possibilities Happen, by Grace Hawthorne.

Creativity is often treated as a gift some people have and others lack. Grace Hawthorne presents it instead as a state of mind that can be trained. She describes a research project in which people taking part in a creativity program showed changes in brain measures and received higher ratings on creative tasks afterward. Hawthorne uses these reported results to support the idea that practice can shape creative ability. They do not promise that any exercise will produce a particular idea. The practical point is that people can learn to notice more possibilities by working with the habits that guide their attention.

One habit to notice is the pull toward comfort, certainty, and safety. Hawthorne describes these tendencies as survival-oriented defaults: unfamiliar or uncertain situations can feel threatening, even when they involve no physical danger. That response may protect people in some circumstances, but it can also make a new possibility seem unappealing before it has been examined. The aim is not to discard caution. It is to notice when an automatic preference for the familiar is deciding what seems possible, and to choose deliberately when it is safe to do so.

Familiarity shapes perception in less obvious ways, too. Past experience helps determine what stands out and what feels natural, often without conscious effort. A familiar route, schedule, or choice of drink can seem like the only reasonable option simply because it is the one already known. Hawthorne suggests varying small routines to encounter something outside that pattern. Such changes are not valuable because every new choice is better. They give the mind practice meeting the unfamiliar instead of treating it as automatically wrong.

That practice can feel uncomfortable at first. If a new routine feels awkward, the feeling may reflect a break from habit rather than a clear judgment about the choice itself. Hawthorne calls for deliberate practice outside the comfort zone, while keeping physical safety in view. She also describes a “mind dodge”: noticing an inherited impulse and steering attention rather than following it automatically. The impulse can still be useful information; it simply does not have to make the decision on its own.

Hawthorne also proposes treating thoughts as fuel. Within this debated model, she says that negatively dreading a huge task generates procrastination and lethargy, while positively accepting it can set up a chain reaction of initiative and action. She explicitly recognizes that the idea of thoughts as energy is deeply debated. It is best understood here as a motivational model for observing how one’s thinking affects willingness to respond, not as an established scientific explanation of energy.

Attention matters because negative information can carry unusual weight. A worry or setback may draw more focus than other facts and influence a decision disproportionately. Hawthorne’s response is to act as a gatekeeper of attention: notice what is pulling focus, then deliberately turn toward the possibility one wants to consider. This is not a call to ignore risks or unpleasant information. It is a way to keep fear from being the only thing examined, so a person can also notice what might work.

The “Do a Duchamp” exercise makes this shift concrete. Marcel Duchamp’s inverted urinal unsettles the assumption that an object has only the purpose assigned to it by convention. Ariel’s use of a fork as a hair comb makes the same point in everyday terms: the fork remains recognizable, but its possible function changes when someone looks beyond its usual role. Neither example says an object can serve every purpose. They show how an assumed function can narrow the search before alternatives have been considered.

To try the exercise, choose an ordinary object and rapidly name other things it might do. Set a timer for sixty seconds and favor quantity over judging each idea. The goal is to stretch beyond the first familiar answer, not to produce a polished invention. The exercise is linked to J. P. Guilford’s Alternative Uses Test and is meant to practice divergent thinking: generating different possibilities from the same starting point. Context still matters. What someone can imagine for an object depends partly on where they are and what the object can do.

Hawthorne’s instruction gives two conflicting cadences: repeat the exercise daily with two objects, and do it two times per week for a month. The schedule is therefore unclear. She also suggests tracking how the exercise feels and whether generating alternatives becomes easier across attempts. Repetition gives attention another chance to move past the object’s expected purpose. Like changing a routine, the exercise makes unfamiliar interpretations less foreign through use; it does not guarantee that a useful idea will appear every time.

The point is to catch the mind’s first default and give it room to continue. Comfort, familiarity, and negative attention can restrict what enters awareness, but people can practice redirecting their focus. “Do a Duchamp” trains that flexibility around function: an object may invite more than its conventional use. This mental practice widens what can be considered, leaving the judgment of which possibility matters for another step.