One of my Secrets of Adulthood is that often, when we give ourselves limits, we give ourselves freedom. That’s one of the mottoes of the Upholder Tendency (if you don’t know whether you’re an Upholder, Q, O, R, take my free quiz).

And it’s also true, and often remarked, that for all people—not just Upholders—when we give ourselves limits, we often spark creativity.

It might seem like absolute freedom would be best for creativity, but in fact, constraints are inspiring.

The sonnet. The haiku. The rectangular flat canvas. Popular songs tend to be about three minutes long, because long ago, early records could hold only about 3-5 minutes per side.

Here’s a funny example of the creative value of constraints. In 1960, publisher Bennett Cerf bet writer Theodor Geisel fifty dollars that he couldn’t write an engaging book for young children that used fewer than fifty unique words.

In answer, Geisel—now better known as “Dr. Seuss”—wrote Green Eggs and Ham and won the bet. (Those fifty monosyllabic words? A, am, and, anywhere, are, be, boat, box, car, could, dark, do, eat, eggs, fox, goat, good, green, ham, here, house, I, if, in, let, like, may, me, mouse, not, on, or, rain, Sam, say, see, so, thank, that, the, them, there, they, train, tree, try, will, with, would, you.) The book was a huge success, but Dr. Seuss complained throughout his life that Cerf never actually paid him the fifty dollars.

It’s really true, even though it may seem counter-intuitive: imagination is often better served by constraint than by freedom. 

I love the way G. K. Chesterton put it: “Art is limitation; the essence of every picture is the frame.”