Creative Blocks: Mind the “F-Words”
This blog post describes eight creativity blockers and adds to the Creativity Canvas presented here.
My addition of creativity blockers result from personal observation and don’t follow scientific research. The concept arises more of experiences — personal or reported by others — as well as from literature on creativity.
This blog post introduces the 8 blockers briefly. They will be explored in future articles.
Fiction
We tell stories to ourselves and to others around us in order to get hold of this slick concept we call creativity. Stories in general are good to convey meaning, morale or key messages. When stories turn into uninformed fiction, however, they do more harm than they help in understanding creativity.
“Oh, I’m not creative. I can’t draw at all” is a common statement from someone who was told over the years, that creativity equals your level of drawing or painting skills. “Eureka!” is the one-word manifestation of one of the biggest myths that frames creativity as a single moment or uncontrollable epiphany.
These myths, misinformation and misconceptions are dangerous. Worst case they lead for people to opt out completely of creative endeavors.
Fixation
In psychology, functional fixedness is a cognitive bias that limits a person’s perspective to use an object in the traditional way only. I refer to fixation as tendency to approach a problem with your traditional thinking styles only. Either you lack other thinking tools that you could apply and/or you unconsciously fall into the same thinking patterns. Fixation results in the difficulty to leave deeply ingrained neural pathways which curbs the possibility of novel thoughts.
You might also be fixated on a certain goal, quality level or outcome. There is a fine line between determination on the one hand and doggedness and unhealthy fixation on the other hand.
Failing Meta
Sometimes we experience creativity but fail to reflect that experience and deduct new perspectives could applied to future situations.This I call failing meta.
Similarly, in their craft of creativity concept, professors M. Cronin and J. Loewenstein describe “enlightenment” as new knowledge that we generate through our creative endeavors. Enlightenments “ … are the most far-reaching products of creativity. They are changes to what we know about the world.”. Those learnings — if captured — can open up new perspectives in any other future task.
In my model failing meta also includes the lack of reflection upon the level of quality or goal you want to achieve with certain creative actions. In his book “The dance of the possible”, author and entrepreneur Scott Berkun refers to this as “quality gap” (one of the three creativity gaps he mentions). Think about it: it makes a big difference whether we see ourselves as hobby writer who simply enjoys writing, as a professional writer who set out to earn money through writing or whether we aspire to become the next J. K. Rowling. Those quality levels will demand different level of commitment and creativity.
Fatigue
Talking to various people about their creativity, I have yet to meet a person that does not occasionally feel some fatigue. Fatigue means being able to constantly keep up a high internal motivation towards his/her own creativity.
I believe there is a difference between creativity in the sense of a novel and useful twist in your endeavour (in my case a creating “gym” for people to train creativity) and creativity in the sense of acting upon an idea (consistently working on that notion of a Creativity Gym and making it become reality).
I believe the novelty and usefulness element of creativity indeed requires regular pauses and stepping back from the problem to incubate in order to generate fresh thoughts. Creativity in the sense of creating based on an insight is the part that requires routine and consistency. Differentiating between those perspectives is key in my opinion.
Flawed Views
Flawed views have to do with our mindset towards resources — both — personal pre-conditions and our possessions. In her work and two decades of research, Carol Dweck beautifully laid out the two types of mindset we can cultivate.
A “fixed mindset” which assumes that — amongst others — our creative ability is set and that we can’t really change it. And a “growth mindset” which “ …. is based on the belief that your basic qualities are things you can cultivate through your efforts. Although people may differ in every which way — in their initial talents and aptitudes, interests, or temperaments — everyone can change and grow through application and experience.”
Another aspect of flawed views covers resources which are not distributed equally. How you think about your available resources, however, can block or boost your creativity. In fact Saras Sarasvathy’s theory of effectuation builds largely on this idea and is a central contribution in entrepreneurship research.
Force Majeure
We are not in control of everything. Full stop. Live is a constant dance between ups and downs and forces you can’t control — the force majeure. We can develop capacities to deal with the downs but there is no way you can control every event or circumstance.
Some events are that severe and impactful that they completely throw you off track. The loss of a loved one for example. Other situations come — theoretically — with some level of control but are practically hard to influence. A company’s culture for instance. Good luck to change a social environment single handily. Also, you barely can influence how a certain domain thinks about your work. Consider Van Gogh. He was poor during his life time and only post-mortem did the arts domain accept his work as that of a master.
Don’t let your creativity wear down from things that you can not change.
Fear
Fear is probably the biggest creativity show stopper. We all experienced fear in our quest to live a creative life. This fear is fed by (at least) two aspects: the fear of social rejection and the fear of uncertainty.
Social rejection is deeply ingrained and constantly builds up from very early on. Will the teacher like my drawing? Can I dress like this? Can I share my idea openly in the meeting? Many people knowingly or unknowingly stop their creative journey out of this kind of fear. We care what others or at least some others think of us. Caring too much, however, can block your creative endeavor before it even starts.
Uncertainty is another beast. In their book “Craft of Creativity” Professor Cronin and Professor Loewenstein refer to it as the “villain” in our creative stories. Creativity — almost per definition — will lead you into the unknown.
Being uncertain about an outcome might be indeed frightening since creativity always holds an element of risk. Chances are that your creative quest does not pan out the way you intended.
Frustration
Frustration with yourself can encompass the feeling of being stuck, overwhelmed or distracted. Ambiguous situations and contradictions add to that feeling. Maybe you are not satisfied with the outcome of some creative work. Or there is too much on your plate (imposed by others or yourself). Frustration can block your creative flow.
Creativity often includes persuading people of your idea’s value — even at stages when your idea is unpolished, unconventional or “odd”. Consequently frustration can include to frustration with others. Collaboration may turn out to be more difficult than expected. Or you might find it difficult to bring your message across to your audience. If you miss the persuasion skills to do so, frustration is almost inevitable.
How the blockers complement the canvas.
The creativity blockers might affect different and various parts of your creativity. Conceptually I found that some blockers affect certain parts of the Creativity Canvas more likely than others.
(Note: that this canvas is an updated version from the initial post)
For instance fear has most likely effects on the element “social environment” and “collaboration” since — as described — one aspect of fear is how you come across to others. This is visually represented by fear being positioned right next to the corresponding elements (social environment & collaboration). I also described, however, the fear of the uncertain. Visually fear would need to be positioned next to the element personality & characteristics, i.e. how you think about risk and how well you cope with uncertainty. Keep in mind that this is a model. Models help you to think about a concept but never can fully capture reality.
As another example, you might remember failing meta affecting your learning process from a creative episode and your reflection of goals with your creative endeavor. That’s why those elements are visually positioned next to each other.
Again, the blockers might affect various of the element in the canvas and the visual layout — though with some consideration behind it — support the understanding.
What creative blockers did you experience?
