Don’t Use Goals to Force Creativity.
We like to think of creativity as a faucet that can be turned on and off, but for most of us it just doesn’t work. At FiveThirtyEight, they look at some of the research behind creativity and suggest avoiding goals to try to focus your ambition.
Work and life often force us to set goals and objectives in creative endeavors, and this is certainly normal. But try to leave room for newness while you do this. Talking to researcher Scott Barry Kaufman, FiveThirtyEight says the following:
While this openness to new ideas may seem like just waiting until intuition emerges, it is a more deliberate process … Simonton’s research has similarly shown that openness to experience and cognitive research is the best predictor of creative achievement … None of this means, that goals have no place, but they are not a great engine for creativity. Instead of starting with a specific goal, Kaufman says, most creative people “start with vague intuition or vision.” “After a lot of trial and error, they get closer and closer to discovering what their idea is, and then they get really really hard to flesh it out.”
Obviously, end goals and objectives are still necessary in many cases, but when you are trying to create something completely new, the goal often gets in the way of what you are really trying to do. When you have time, let the project develop in some strange direction.
Stop trying to be creative | Five thirty eight