Top 3 Creativity Myths That Hold You Back --- Myth #1

When I tell a group of people that they are creative, I have some that knowingly smile back, and some that look me at me like this...and say "Who? Me?"

Why is that? In my experience there are 3 myths that many of us hold about creativity that keep us from tapping into the true creative potential inside us - and in my next 3 posts I will share and debunk each one. Here we go...

Myth #1: Our definition of creativity

We have a tendency to think that the word "creativity" only applies to artists and musicians . While it's true they may be artistic, they don’t corner the market on creativity.

When I was writing my book, The Firefly Effect (Wiley), I told my husband that I thought everyone had creativity within them. Well, he's a pretty analytical guy – so he just looked at me and said “Do you have any data to back that up?”

I didn’t – so off to the library I went to find some. After a very frustrating day spent reviewing very arcane research from psychology and science journals, I was worn out and not sure if I would find the evidence I was looking for. I wasn’t even sure what creativity was any more.

That afternoon, I’m driving my teenage daughter Maddi to tennis practice. I turned to her and asked: “Maddi, how would you define creativity?” Being a typical teenager her first response was, of course, "That’s random!"

I said – "No, really – how would you define creativity?"

This time her response took my breath away…. “To be original. To do something no one else would think of.” Wow!