Monday, June 2, 2008

Myths about creativity

Creativity is not magic, although it can sometimes seem this way, and there are a surprising number of myths about it, including the following chestnuts, most of which are excuses, rather than real reasons.
Creativity is stupid
Fluffy stuff

Creativity is often seen as fluffy, insubstantial and unscientific, especially by people who prefer data-oriented, logical and structured approaches to life.
Whilst creative approaches are not always empirically proven, it is still a deeply-researched and well-understood science. And as the source of all new value creation, it has very serious business benefits.
Just ideas
Creativity can be seen as just about coming up with ideas. You know, the brainstorming thing about sitting around and having strange ideas.
In fact this is just the beginning of a long and difficult process of that includes developing the ideas, marketing them and generally getting them accepted in the wider world.
I'm not that sort of person
I am not creative
This is a common cry of people who have spent most of their lives avoiding being creative. Yet they did not start out that way. At the age of two they were very creative - guaranteed. The thing is, much education and parenting is designed to help the child conform, and it is easy for the child to repress all creative tendencies in an adaptive response to this situation. Before long, they forget even this event and enjoy the benefits that conforming can bring. And then, when they are asked to be creative, their weak and distant memories of discouragement stop them from even thinking that it is possible that they could be creative in any circumstance.
I am not a creative type
Creativity something done by 'creative types' who are somehow in a different world to the rest of us.
We are all creative types. It's just that some people put it in their job definition. Creativity is a natural birthright of everyone. The principle of generativity says that we are constantly being creative. Almost everything you do and say are things you have not done or said before, perhaps just in the exact way this time.
Gay people are creative
Creativity and homosexuality are often put in a similar bag, and the archetypal creative person is either out-and-out gay or at the very least suspiciously foppish.
This has been studied, and it has been concluded that there is no correlation between gayness and creative ability. What has been surmised, however, is that gay people, being used to being 'different', find it easier to let go and forget about social rules around not rocking the boat.
I'm not clever enough
Creativity is difficult
Allied with 'I am not creative' is the idea that creativity is somehow difficult. Well it is true that it is not easy, especially when you get past the initial ideation stage.
The difficult part of creativity for many is the state of uncertainty that they find themselves in during the divergent activities. It is easy to retreat from this and not offer ideas and hence blame it as being too difficult.
You can't learn to be creative
Some people seem naturally creative and some seem naturally uncreative. Yet this is nowhere as widespread as it may seem and most people are actually far more capable of being creative than they think, and a little gentle training can go a long way to reawakening their creative capabilities.
Of course, can never solve every creative problem to order, but you can bend the numbers by understanding how creativity really works and learning to use creativity-enhancing methods

Content taken from changingminds.org

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