Let Yourself Shine!: How to avoid obstacles to creativity

Creativity is the ability to make something new or to develop new ideas. Developing your creativity can benefit your education, relationships and hobbies. Although young children love to be creative, most teenagers have less motivation to create new things, mainly due to the fear of rejection, failure or judgement. Listed below are some of the most common barriers to creativity. You can always stack the deck in your favour by dealing intelligently with these barriers.

1. Fear of ridicule

As they say, nothing ventured, nothing gained. No matter what you do, someone will provide criticism. You can never please everyone. Some will love you and some won’t, irrespective of what you do! So you must learn to ignore the naysayers and let your creativity shine.

2. Fear of failure

Remember! Sometimes you win and sometimes you learn. All you have to do is to learn how to ‘fail forward’. As long as you can view your failure as a learning opportunity, take the lesson and move on, it’s worth it! Even a simple thing such as walking is mastered only when a toddler fails to stand on his/her feet and balance the body weight multiple times. Imagine if a toddler gives up his/her desire to stand and walk because he/she is failing! Will he/she ever learn to walk? Never! You’ve already failed thousands of times in one way or another and you’ve survived. So why be afraid of failing now? Just take it as an opportunity to grow and move on.

3. Interruptions

Time and space energize creativity. It’s more challenging to come up with a brilliant idea if you are constantly hooked onto social media websites and your phone is chirping at you every 30 seconds. Schedule your creative time to minimize as many interruptions as possible. Early in the morning and later in the evening can be the best options for many.

4. Distractions

A distraction is an interruption you give yourself. Ask yourself, “How do I commonly waste time?” Remove those distractions from your immediate environment. Put your cell phone on mute and throw it in the drawer. Turn off the TV. Focus 100% on your creative activity. All distractions are controllable, provided you have the ability to discipline yourself and manage your time to match your priorities.

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