ROAD BLOCKS FOR CREATIVITY

There are often prevailing negative forces that keep us from realizing our full potential of creative abilities.

1. External Factors:

That affect your ability to perform creatively include perceptions. You have about things that go on around us, and organization protocols at work.
Routine procedures are often established by companies to structure and stream line operations, which adversely impact the individual’s creativity over the period.
Procedures, co-worker attitudes can hinder your freedom to think creatively.

2. Internal Factors:

That threaten your creativity include psychological and mental attributes, such as the degree to which you are open minded or self confident.
A positive outlook and a healthy sense of well-being motivate to be more creative, and dare to open to new experiences.
Most individuals find that they have much more control over the internal factors than over the external ones.
If you take the time to understand and master the issues that create internal conflict, you can affect a tremendous change in your personal creativity.

3. Fear of Failure:

From childhood, people learn that success is rewarded, and failure is punished.
This implicit message can be very debilitating, as many adults develop an exaggerated fear of failure. For some, the fear of failure can serve as a mobilizing force, impelling them to succeed.
More often, however, this fear makes them avoid taking risks and shy away from competitive situations.
This often paralyzing force keeps us from working to our potential.
The more creative you are, the more you will periodically re-evaluate the worth of all existing practices.
And the more you improve existing operations, the more creative you will feel. Creativity begets creativity.

4. Cultural Blocks:

“Most of us have been taught that it’s wrong to do things or look at things differently. As a result, we loose confidence in ourselves and begin to look at reality only in terms of the categories by which society orders it”.
Modern civilization seems to have been designed to dull our sensibilities. The ability to dream fanciful things, to imagine the impossible and to fantasize is so abundant in childhood.
As we develop toward adulthood, these flights of fancy are starved and stop day dreaming, stick to the facts, behave like an adult, and be rational.
The best antidote to a cultural block is a pro-active approach. Actively question conventions and habits, analyze your own strengths and weaknesses, be aware of the resources in your environment.
Throw all wild ideas on to the table. You never know which idea will provide the seed from which an innovative solution can ultimately grow.

5. Premature Judgment:

The creative mind visualizes, and generates ideas. The judicial mind analyses the problems, compares the recognized options and chooses a solution.
Many of us have a tendency to evaluate too quickly, uttering an automatic “ no “ to any idea which may be even slightly off-beat or risky.
Take your time during brain-storming or problem solving, and don’t be too hasty to reach a conclusion. Every idea should be considered equally viable until the contrary is proved later.
Some suggestions initially rejected as impossible turnout to be the source of dramatic innovations.

6. Rigidity:

Rigid people take a formula approach to life, and fail to adapt, even through “exceptions to the rule” are constantly presenting themselves.
It is a functional fixedness, where by you fail to see alternative uses for things, beyond those uses for which they were originally intended.
A passionate set of pre conceived beliefs that are often un-wanted by actual information shuts more doors than it opens.

7. Imaginary boundaries:

Many of us run into trouble during creative brain-storming because we impose too many boundaries and constraints on the process.
Rules and restrictions that we carry with us can certainly inhibit creativity and the free flow ideas.

8. Perceptual blocks:

Habits also hamper creative problem solving. The more familiar the situation or object, the harder it is to see it differently.
Many of us fail to use all of our senses during observation.
Whenever behaviors become automatic, when we take objects too much for granted, we no longer truly observe.
Recognizing any problem is only half the battle. The more familiar the situation is, the harder it is to see it from a fresh perspective.
Once we fall victims to habitual ways of visualizing, our creativity suffers.

9. Emotional Blocks:

“Thinking is emotional”, when we face a difficult situation our great reaction often comes from an emotional response.
As with fear of failure, certain emotional responses can keep us from realizing our full creative potential.

10. Change in motivation:

A person’s motivation is the result of many forces, including upbringing, education, job function, ambition and self confidence.
Attention must be geared towards fostering healthy and creative motivations, while insidious or divisive ones must be weeded out.
An awareness or understanding is only the first step. Next, you must identify the specific aspects of your life or behaviors patterns that call for change.
You should map out specific steps you will take in your day-to-day activities, to become more adventuresome or creative.