Unravel the myth of the 10,000-hour rule as the sole path to creativity. Discover how creativity transcends mere practice, intertwining with curiosity, passion, and a dash of serendipity. Let's delve into the multifaceted nature of creativity beyond the confines of deliberate practice.
Mastering almost any skill through deliberate practice
Deliberate practice involves a series of techniques designed to learn efficiently and purposefully
- Most applicable to highly developed fields such as chess, sports, and musical performance
- Not all domains of human achievement rely on consistently replicable behaviors
- For most creative domains, the goals and ways of achieving success are constantly changing
- While Kobe Bryant showcasing the same slam dunk will reliably induce applause, scientists can’t keep publishing the same paper over and over again and expect the same acclaim
Creativity doesn’t have an expiration date
Creativity seems to happen when it’s ready to happen
- Talent is relevant to creative accomplishment
- Expertise acquisition appears to be the least interesting aspect of creativity as creators tend to be in a hurry to learn what exists so that they can go beyond what exists
- Personality is relevant
- People differ from one another in a multitude of ways
- Environmental experiences also matter
- Another hugely important environmental factor for creativity is the availability of role models in one’s childhood and adolescent years
Creativity involves much more than just deliberate practice
Creators are not necessarily the most efficient, but their messy minds and messy processes often allow them to see things others have never seen, and to create new paths that future generations will deliberately practice.
- An accurate understanding of creativity is important for how we recognize, nurture, value, and reward it, across all sectors of society.
Pressure to Outperform
Artists are under constant pressure to surpass what they have already done
- This drives originality
- However, it can lose its “shock value” quickly
- Lady Gaga couldn’t wear a meat dress for Halloween and still get a standing ovation
Creativity is often blind
It’s impossible for creators to know completely whether their new idea or product will be well received
- Creators rarely receive helpful feedback
- Deliberate practice is helpful when it comes to well-structured domains, but for most creative domains, you are working, often in solitude, for a very long time writing that novel or coming up with that mathematical proof, with very little immediate feedback
