When I speak with everyday people, almost always a proportion of them will tell me that they are not creative.

When I ask them why they think that, the most common answer I get is they list things that they cannot do or that they don’t think they are good at:

“I can’t draw”

“I can’t sing well”

“I can’t play an instrument”

They usually compare themselves to famous people they consider to be creative, who are most frequently painters, musicians, singers, sculptors, dancers or other artists.

And these individuals think that just because they don’t have the same level of skill that someone who has spent tens of thousands of hours mastering, it means that they themselves are not creative.

They may have even been taught this (explicitly or implicitly) by their parents, teachers or society, by separating professional artists from other people in society.

This is the problem of the Art Bias, where everyday people consider artistic skill as being the true way to judge if someone is creative or not.

This issue was highlighted by research by Mark Runco. The Art Bias has even been investigated in creativity research itself, where some researchers held artistic creativity in higher regard as other fields and may have implicitly designed their experiments in a biased manner.

As we have previously discussed, you can be creative in any field in life, not just in the arts.

And whatever level of skill you are at, you can improve it through deliberate practice.

So stop judging your own creative ability by comparing your skills to professional creatives.

I for example cannot sing very well, even though I do enjoy a bit of karaoke every now and again and know all the words to Gangsta’s Paradise. Other people can sing a lot better than I can. But I may be more creative than them in problem solving, design, financial modelling or even theatre.

Art is not the only way to judge creativity.

Did you know that scientific evidence shows your creativity decreases over time

Idea to Value Podcast: Listen and Subscribe now

Listen and Subscribe to the Idea to Value Podcast. The best expert insights on Creativity and Innovation. If you like them, please leave us a review as well.
Apple Podcasts
Google Podcasts
Spotify
Stitcher
The following two tabs change content below.
My Twitter profileMy Facebook profileMy LinkedIn profileMy YouTube channel

Nick Skillicorn

Chief Editor, Founder & CEO at Improvides Innovation Consulting
Creativity & Innovation expert: I help individuals and companies build their creativity and innovation capabilities, so you can develop the next breakthrough idea which customers love. Chief Editor of Ideatovalue.com and Founder / CEO of Improvides Innovation Consulting. Coach / Speaker / Author / TEDx Speaker / Voted as one of the most influential innovation bloggers.