Are you one of the many people whose mindset is that you are not creative? Your mindset affects the way you see your life, work, friends, and family. It frees you to explore or blocks you from your potential. Use the right mindset to free your creativity.
What is a Mindset?
Merriam-Webster Dictionary defines mindset as “1: a mental attitude or inclination 2: a fixed state of mind.”
Many experts discuss mindset in terms of two large categories: Fixed Mindset and Growth Mindset.
People with a fixed mindset believe they cannot change their abilities, intelligence, or talents. They see those things as forever fixed. Their primary goal in life becomes to use what they have and to not look stupid or silly.
Someone with a growth mindset believes they can maximize their potential. They will try to maximize whatever they are interested in.
More than One
The difficulty of mindset is that most of us aren’t one or the other. We often have a growth mindset in some areas of our lives and a fixed mindset in others. Our mindset might be fluid according to our activity or age or other influences.
For years, I had a strong growth mindset in the skills I could learn. But I had the opposite mindset about math. I believed I was not good at mathematics, that I simply couldn’t learn higher math. I had a fixed mindset about mathematics. And for a time I had a fixed mindset that I had “lost” my creativity and it was gone for good.
Growth and fixed are large umbrella terms for mindset.
Four Specific Mindsets
There are specific types of mindsets in different types of disciplines such as business versus creativity vs learning, I’ll list four more general ones here.
Negative
A negative mindset is the attitude that criticizes everything and everyone. Every step will end in failure, no matter what. This is a fixed mindset. One cannot be creative in a negative mindset.
Linear
A linear mindset is just what it says. Then mental attitude or inclination is to think and move linearly. This is a valuable mindset that allows you to break a bigger task down into smaller steps.
Structural
A structural mindset is the inclination to put a framework to an unstructured problem. This mindset doesn’t seek answers outside that framework. But this mindset is also useful. To every creative endeavor, there are structural components that frame the execution of that endeavor. With stories, its beginning, middle, end (plus a lot more). With knitting, it is needle sizes, position of needle and yarn, and number of stitches (at the least). It’s helpful to apply a structural mindset to creative projects. A structural mindset can be limiting if you can’t step away from it to be creative.
Creative
A creative mindset is a mental attitude or inclination to be creative. Read that again. A mental attitude is the key—not talent or ability. It an attitude that allows you to think, feel, and express creativity in your endeavors.
If you’ve decided you are someone who can bring something into existence—you already have a creative mindset. If you’ve decided you are not creative, you have a fixed idea of what you cannot do. You have a fixed mindset.
So now you know what mindset is, before we can discuss what a creative mindset is, we need to agree on the definition of “creative.”
What Creative Means
Merriam-Webster dictionary defines creative as: marked by the ability or power to create : given to creating. It doesn’t help us reach a common understanding though. So I prefer instructor and author, Stefan Mumaw’s definition. He defines creativity as “problem-solving with relevance and novelty.” The relevance can mean it solves a need for entertainment, for beauty, or for a task to be easier.
Notice, his definition says novelty, not originality. Meaning it’s a “new” or different from previous solutions.
It takes both soft skills and hard skills to be creative. Non teachable skills like personality traits, interpersonal skills, communication skills, and adaptability are soft skills. Hard skills are things that are teachable like writing, reading, math, and computer skills.
That means that creativity is partly the way you are and partly skills you can learn. It also makes clear that solving problems–any kind of problem–is creative as long as the solution is relevant to the problem and is new/novel in some way.
So, we’ve defined creativity. What is a creative mindset?
Characteristics of a Creative Mindset
According to Jackie Gerstein, Ed.D. some characteristics of a creative mindset are:
- Believes in One’s Own Creativity
- Embraces Curiosity
- Suspends Judgement—Silences the Inner Critic
- Tolerates Ambiguity
- Persists Even When Confronted with Skepticism & Rejection
- Taps Into Childlike Imagination; a Child’s Sense of Wonder
Longtime readers of this blog know I agree with the “taps into childlike imagination.” See my post “Be a Child.” I agree with the other characteristics as well. But, silencing the inner critic and tolerates ambiguity need a brief explanation.
Judgement and the Inner Critic
Being able to suspend judgement and silence the inner critic isn’t a black and white situation. Judgement and inner critics will interrupt or stop a creative mindset. But judgement and inner critics are also a necessary piece of being a creative—at the right time.
Creatives must learn to suspend negative judgement and silence the negative inner critic. Negative mindset holds you back from the act of creation. Ideas must be able to flow freely without interference. It’s okay, in fact, it’s helpful, to make mistakes and improve your methods. Use your growth mindset judgement and inner critic to help you evaluate your creation when you are having difficulty executing your idea or when it’s complete.
Tolerating Ambiguity
What Ms. Gerstein meant to express in the idea of tolerating ambiguity revolves around idea creation. She states tolerating ambiguity is the ability to give way to new ideas, other viewpoints, etc.
I would reword this. Creatives must “tolerate the incubation of ideas.” Most creatives don’t have a complete creative idea pop into their heads. The development of a creative idea often comes over days, weeks, months, and even years. The more practice you have with creative thinking, the more quickly ideas will come. But ideas are often more like a treasure hunt than an instant step-by-step plan.
A Creative Mindset
Your mindset is at least 80% of your success. Some experts put it at 90% or more. Don’t let your mindset be a roadblock. Use the right mindset to free your creativity.
Resources
Arts Integration, “Creativity isn’t a Soft Skill”
User Generated Education “The Creativity Mindset”
Featured image (with additional text by Lynette M. Burrows) and Photos are from unsplash.com