Qualities of Creative Individuals – care to do a self-assessment?

Here’s an oldie and goodie. This list of characteristics is excerpted from “Creativity: Flow and the Psychology of Discovery and Invention”  by Mihalyi Csikszentmihalyi, 1996, who is a noted researcher on happiness and creativity.

Creativity assessment:  You can use his descriptors as a checklist to see which apply to you.

• Creative individuals have a great deal of physical energy, and they are also often quiet.

• Creative individuals tend to be smart, yet also naïve at the same time.

• A third paradoxical trait refers to the related combination of playfulness and discipline.

• Creative individuals alternate between imagination and fantasy at one end, and a rooted sense of reality at the other.

• Creative people seem to harbor opposite tendencies on the continuum between extroversion and introversion, seem to express both traits at the same time.

• Creative individuals are also remarkably humble and proud at the same time.

• Creative individuals to a certain extent escape rigid gender stereotyping.

• Generally, creative people are thought to be rebellious and independent as well as cultured/traditionalist.

• Most creative people are very passionate about their work, yet they can be extremely objective about it as well.

• The openness and sensitivity of creative individuals often exposes them to suffering and pain yet also a great deal of enjoyment.

So, how do you think of yourself with regards to your creativity?  New ideas and new decisions anyone?