The Creativity Assassins Sent to Kill Your Amazing Ideas

When you come up with new and innovative ideas, you can be sure of one thing; not everyone will buy into them right away. Some people will never buy into your ideas, while others will go out of their way to sabotage them. Crazy, but that’s precisely what happens to most creative ideas; they are killed by a long list of willing assassins long before you get to execute any of them. Why are so many people out to destroy your creativity, and who are these people? Trust me; you don’t have to look far, so let’s start close to home.

Your Parents

People’s thinking is significantly influenced by their parents, whose main job in life is to keep you safe. Therefore, most parents master the art of NO. They don’t mean to kill your creativity, but they can’t help it; their protection instinct just kicks in anytime you want to do, say, act or explore something out of the ordinary. If they are not afraid you will get hurt, they are worried about how you will feel if you fail or what might happen to your social standing or theirs if you charge ahead with your fool-hardy idea.

Typical creativity killers include statements:

· Don’t do that

· Don’t touch that

· Why did you do that? (blame)

· Why can’t you just follow the rules?

· Why can’t you be more like Jonny or Sally?

· Why do you have to be different?

· Everyone else does it this way

· You need a good formal education and a degree to get anywhere in life

The Education System

People are influenced by teachers, professors, and an education system whose main job is to educate students to a specific set standard. One that rewards the repetition of facts, figures, and standard tests far more than rewards process or creativity. That rewards conformity to lovely…