At the beginning of this creative confidence series, I referenced a definition of creative confidence developed by the Children’s Creativity Museum (CCM):
Creative confidence is having the freedom and courage to fail/take creative risks and the knowledge that all of the ideas you create have value.
I think most of us can get our heads around the first part of this definition, but what about the second: Creative confidence is the knowledge that all of the ideas you create have value?
If we, as a society, believed this definition wholeheartedly, we wouldn’t hear or make statements like:
“This is a probably dumb idea, but…”
“Oh, it was just a stupid idea.”
“She/He/They had some really dumb ideas in the meeting.”
“That’s an idiotic idea.”
“You don’t have to use my idea. It’s probably not good anyway.”
“Why can’t I come up with any good ideas?”
And my absolute favorite: “OMG! I came up with that idea ages ago!” (Implying that the idea was thought up, but not considered valuable enough to follow through on).
Clearly, we have the tendency to undervalue our own thinking and creations, as well as the thinking and creations of others.
I have a suspicion that when many of us read the Children’s Creativity Museum’s definition, we silently generate a ton of seemingly logical reasons why all ideas can’t possibly have value – and especially the ideas that WE create.
It would seem that the definition would be far easier to swallow if it read: Creative confidence is the BELIEF that all of the ideas you create have value. In this case, all gaining creative confidence would require is the development of a belief – true or not – we could even trick ourselves into it.
But the definition doesn’t say belief. It says KNOWLEDGE – and that implies the knowing of the truth that all of the ideas you create have value.
This week and next, I’d like all of us to participate in a two-part creativity experiment and see how it affects our creative confidence: Part One is about proving the definition; Part Two is about acting as if the definition is true.
To participate in Part One: Proving That All Ideas Have Value, simply share your proof with me and the Unlocked Box community by commenting to this post below.
You’ll be making a contribution to the discussion around creativity and creative confidence— and we’ll be venturing into Part Two ahead of time – acting as if it’s true that all ideas have value. In this case, mine.
To proving the value of our ideas.