Creativity Killers you want to avoid are the many little unconscious habits and actions that are stopping you from reaching your potential. But what is Creativity though?
Creativity is such a cliché word! And if we struggle to define it, we’re more likely to be unconsciously blocking ourselves from our full creative potential. Is it an art-related thing? Or is it about the quality of our ideas?
The amount of questions that come to mind is just so overwhelming that at one point in life, I had no idea what people meant when they said “that’s creative!” or “you are very creative!”.
In this blog post, I’m willing to share with you 12 creativity killers you can (and you should) be avoiding at all costs…
What is creativity?
Some people think (I did too at a point) of creativity as giftedness or inborn talent, that it appears out of nowhere, and is the fruit of natural talent, or a good mood, or even an alignment of the stars, you name it.
And to give you a better definition of what creativity means, let me put you in a situation instead. First, a thought or an idea stirs in your mind, slowly you transform this idea into a material (sketch, written note, a picture, a scenario…), this material creates a third element: a response in someone else (an emotion, a reaction…). This exact process is called creativity. There’s no wowing effect needed around it.
Am I creative?
A straight-up answer to that: yes, you are naturally creative. We all are!
But since you’re asking, let me get back at you. Are you lazy? Or do you think you’re unlucky and weren’t blessed with creativity?
We are all creative because we’re all thinkers and are able to form a vision. Thinking is an extended form of vision, and creativity is the ability to expand that vision beyond conventional boundaries. If you can’t expand your vision, it’s not a lack of creativity, it’s a lack of information and knowledge in your brain. The good news is, lack of knowledge can be fixed with the right amount of effort, you can learn, do research, practice, and gain a full set of skills through nothing but persistence and goodwill.
How are you blocking your creativity?
The first block that goes without saying is the fact that you think creativity is an inborn talent. Let’s get rid of this idea before we move on to anything else.
So with that being said, these next 12 things you’re doing are blocking your creativity and stopping you from becoming the most creative version of yourself. Yet, you can easily overcome them:
- Lack of visual nutrition/food for thought
- Not stopping to look at the path we’re on or about to begin
- Rejecting/Judging our ideas
- Rushing
- Relying on shortcuts
- Thinking that Effort is passé
- Letting your Ego take the lead
- Refusing to fail
- Being lazy
- Refusing to imitate and recreate as a beginner
- Wanting to be like everyone/someone else
- Resisting change
1. Your lack of visual nutrition/food for thought is a creativity killer you can avoid:
I have a blog post to help with that: Top Websites to Find Creative Inspiration.
If your mind lacks data, it can in no way, shape, or form, create new innovative ideas. A mind’s job is to process and make connections to produce and create. The expressions “visual nutrition” or “food for thought” are what we might call inspiration as well. You can give your mind various forms of data to use and work with, depending on your thinking style or preferred info consumption style. For instance, if you’re a visual thinker, you can use Pinterest to find pictures that especially appeal to you or inspire your idea. If you’re more into writing and feel like you relate to that, articles and books provide great info and help develop critical thinking abilities.
2. Not stopping to look at the path we’re on or about to begin:
If you’re not doing something that you enjoy and that would lead you to your life’s task, forget about creativity… Connecting with our inclinations is what sparks good ideas inside of us and what we lack most in the modern world is a sense of a larger purpose to our lives. You must love the subject and feel a profound connection to it in order for you to be creative at it. It’s about where you’re pouring your effort, not the effort itself.
3. Creativity killer you Can Avoid Today: Rejecting/Judging our ideas
Very guilty of this myself, some of my ideas sound very cool in my head and some are just trash. Over the years, I learned that no idea is bad! And all ideas deserve a chance. Every idea that fails to become a project or work of art is an idea that paves the way for a fresher, more creative one to be born. Just don’t let it sit there and waste your energy overthinking it.
4. You are killing your Creativity if you keep Rushing:
Another way you’re blocking your creativity is rushing. I always hear 18 year old kids :’) say that it’s too late to start on something, or that a 30 year old is too old to be creative. Let me reassure you, your most creative years are generally your late twenties and on into your forties. That’s where you have had enough knowledge and data so that your mind can start making the right pairings and connections. And if you don’t believe me, look the story of Grandma Moses up.
5. You are killing your Creativity if you are Relying on shortcuts:
With the way our world is nowadays, we believe that we can find a shortcut for literally everything. This is a very destructive habit and it has made the laziest less creative generation ever. We believe that we can skip the hard work and the steps needed to do something properly, we avoid the learning process and rely on easy formulas to give us the power and success we’re aiming for.
Basics and Hard work can not be avoided, no matter how hard you try to prove yourself right and stick to your shortcuts and how useful and trendy they are, you’ll eventually find yourself going back to what you avoided as the only way to master your skill or field.
6. Relying on talent only is another creativity killer you can avoid today:
You are very wrong if you separate creativity from effort. Patience, discipline, persistence, and confidence are the ingredients to make a creative mind. But if you rely on your talents and consider the effort and seeking knowledge as a fussy and passé kinda stuff, you will not make any progress.
7. You are killing your creativity if you’re Letting your Ego take the lead:
I totally hate to bring self-dev into an art-related article, but the truth is: that being a successful artist is all about the personality you make for yourself. Note that learning requires a sense of humility. You will have to learn from others, so understand that the people we are learning from aren’t geniuses with superpowers but rather people who have dedicated time to gain experience in their field and that we too can be an example for the upcoming generations as well. “Don’t let your ego fool you. YOU ARE ALWAYS KNOWLEDGE’S INFERIOR”. [The daily laws (March 10th), Robert Greene, Profile Books Ltd; Main édition (7 October 2021)]
8. Refusing to fail:
Failure comes from never trying out your ideas, or because you are waiting for the perfect time. This is the kind of failure you can never learn from and it will take you absolutely nowhere. Failure is needed to toughen our spirit, and show us with absolute clarity how things must be done.
Act on your ideas as early as possible. Expose them to the public, fail, learn, and master.
9. Being lazy:
If you are feeling bored and restless, your mind shuts off and you become passive. We get the mind and quality of brain that we deserve through our actions in life. You should stop being lazy, make time and effort to learn as many skills as possible, following the direction that circumstances lead you to. But again only if they are related to your deepest interests.
10. Refusing to imitate and recreate as a beginner:
If this is your idea, forget about it. If someone else is telling you this, cut them off. YOU CAN NOT COME UP WITH THINGS WITHOUT KNOWLEDGE AND PRIOR IDEAS, and the only way to do so is to use references, copy, recreate, and imitate what others have created in the past. You should always learn from the expertise and mistakes of those in your field before you start doing your own thing. And on this note, I would like you to check one of my all-time favorite books “Steal Like an Artist” by Austin Kleon.
From my personal experience, I recall my communication professor’s lifetime advice when he asked me: “You know why it’s interesting to read about the history of the field you’re willing to enter? You have to know where the world stopped so you can take over from there and not dwell on problems already solved and redo what was previously done”.
11. Wanting to be like everyone/someone else is such a creativity killer:
Trying to be like someone else is a creativity killer you can avoid starting now. Occupy your niche, some people like to experiment, some like to discover and some like to memorize! No one is wrong or less creative. Rebel against the forces that have pushed you away from your path and direct yourself toward the small things you’re good at.
12. Resisting change:
Every time we resist change, we create a limit in our minds, we later feed that limit with the excuses we keep thinking about, then we create a problem out of it. Therefore, we spend too much time entangled in the emotional issues we created and we can’t detach from our minds and reflect to see what’s stopping us from being our creative selves.
Conclusion:
Creative creativity involves the entire self: Our emotions, our levels of energy, our characters, and our minds. A high level of knowledge about a field or subject, and the openness and flexibility to use this knowledge in new and original ways, is what make the right recipe for creativity.
For more on creativity, you can check these 5 Art Exercises to Boost Your Creativity.
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