Creative Thinking Self Assessment

For my Creative Thinking class we had to do a self assessment of our own creativity:

1) What do you see as your current strengths?

In terms of creativity, I really enjoy innovation and change. I love finding new ways to do things, in both personal and professional settings. I also try to be open to new perspectives and points of view, and not to box myself into one way of thinking.

2) What are your needs?

From a creative point of view, I think I would like to develop in two major areas. In terms of my personal life, I would like to strengthen my intrinsic motivation and follow-through around creativity. I often have creative ideas, but fail to act on them, or start them but don’t finish.

In terms of my professional work I would like to improve my ability to build support for creative approaches. In the past I’ve often had creative ideas in the work place, but struggled to convincingly communicate them to others.

3a) In what domains do you wish to demonstrate your creativity, or what is the domain of your primary creative striving?

Following up on the question above, I’d like to be creative in both my personal and professional domains.

Professionally, I always enjoyed moving my projects to the “next level,” finding new and innovative ways to reach goals and tackle challenges. I always try to embrace the concept of continual improvement, and to be open to new ideas. Most of my professional life has involved working with undergraduate college students, and one of my goals was to encourage them to embrace innovation and change.

In the personal domain I’d like to incorporate creativity into as many aspects of my life as possible. I think the willingness and ability to think and act in new ways, to be open to change and possibilities, is central to human development.

I have one very specific personal creative goal. I’d really like to write a fantasy/science fiction novel. I’ve been working on the ideas and structure for it since high school (almost 20 years now!), and I have lots of elements in place (characters, plot, setting, etc.), but I’ve written almost none of the actual story. I would love to use this class to jumpstart that process.

3b) How would you characterize your willingness to take risk in this domain?

In the professional setting I’d generally describe myself as “almost always” willing to take risk…but with a caveat. I usually start by assessing how safe the environment is for trying new things. Some settings are really open to creativity, and some aren’t. I’m usually cautious until I have a sense for how supportive/hostile the culture is to change. Once I have a sense for the environment I move forward from there. My goal is to always encourage positive development, but some organizations are very resistant.

In a personal setting…I’m not sure. Sometimes I really enjoy creativity and trying new things, but other times I’m reluctant to put myself out there. That’s something I’d like to reflect on more this semester.

4) How would you characterize your typical willingness to take risks in professional activity?

In addition to what I mentioned for question 3b, I’ll add that I tend to aim for incremental change; I try to find creative new methods and approaches without disrupting everything that currently exists, and while maintaining all the good elements that are already in place. So while I think of myself as open to creativity, I also value what has already been accomplished. Sometimes that’s led to conflicts when I’ve worked with people that wanted to make changes faster than I thought was realistic.

5) Write a statement describing the specific goals you envision working towards in this course.

Professionally I would like to improve my skill in communicating about and building a constituency for change in work settings.

Personally I would like to strengthen my drive and motivation to work on writing my book, and to start developing habits that will help me in the project.