IMAGINE CREATIVITY!

Have you ever stopped to consider the difference between creativity and imagination? Clearly, the two are linked, but how do they affect each other?

The authors at the Discover Building Sets blog explain the relationship between imagination and creativity this way: “Creativity is commonly referred to as the ability to create something real using imagination. Whereas imagination is the capability to create in one’s own mind what does not exist. The imagination come first and is necessary for creativity but not the other way around.

Oxford Languages defines imagination as the faculty or action of forming new ideas, or images or concepts of external objects not present to the senses. And creativity is the use of the imagination or original ideas, especially in the production of an artistic work.

“Life in the Minds of Children”
Mehdinom

Highly Creative People

The obvious question is, who’s the most creative of them all?

Determining the most creative person ever is highly subjective but there have been lots of people who have made groundbreaking contributions in various fields, demonstrating exceptional creativity. Quoting Kriti Roy (writing at Quora), some people often mentioned for their creativity include:

  • Leonardo da Vinci: Leonardo da Vinci is renowned for his extraordinary artistic skills, scientific explorations, and inventive mind. His diverse talents and imaginative thinking exemplify creativity across multiple disciplines.
  • Pablo Picasso: Picasso’s innovative and influential approach to art, particularly through his development of Cubism, challenged traditional artistic conventions and expanded the boundaries of visual expression.
  • Marie Curie: Marie Curie’s pioneering work in radioactivity and her groundbreaking discoveries in physics and chemistry demonstrate her innovative and creative approach to scientific research.
  • Albert Einstein: Einstein’s revolutionary theories in physics, including the theory of relativity, transformed our understanding of the universe. His ability to think beyond conventional boundaries and imagine new possibilities exemplifies creative thinking.
  • William Shakespeare: Shakespeare’s literary works, such as his plays and sonnets, showcase his exceptional storytelling abilities, linguistic creativity, and profound insights into human nature.

These are just a few examples, and there are many other individuals throughout history who have made significant creative contributions in their respective fields.

It’s important to note that creativity can manifest in various domains, including arts, sciences, literature, philosophy, and more. Each person’s creativity is unique and shaped by their context, cultural influences, and personal experiences. Defining the “most creative” person ultimately depends on individual perspectives and the specific criteria used to evaluate creativity.

Traits of Creative People

Here are twelve traits that creative people possess and use in their daily lives, as discussed at indeed.com:

  • Curious
  • Playful
  • Open-minded
  • Flexible
  • Sensitive
  • Independent
  • Risk-taking
  • Intuitive
  • Thorough
  • Ambitious
  • Objective
  • Energetic

Creative Personality Traits often appear in apparently opposite personality types.

  • Introverts and Extroverts
  • Intuitive and Observant Personalities
  • Feeling and Thinking Personalities
  • Prospecting and Judging Personalities
  • Assertive and Turbulent Personalities

In short, by my reading, any personality type can be creative, though not always by the same means.

“Creative people like to daydream and imagine the possibilities and wonders of the world. They can immerse themselves in imagination and fantasy, yet remain grounded enough to turn their daydreams into reality. They are often described as dreamers, but that doesn’t mean that they live with their heads in the clouds.”

Kendra Cherry, MSEd, from Very Well Mind

Downside to Imagination

Although imagination is necessary for creativity, not all imagining is productive. An individual with an overactive imagination is one whose tendency to focus on their fantasies is so frequent and central to their waking hours, as to distract them from actually working toward achieving their own goals, or developing real-life, fulfilling relationships.

There is a strong overlap between imagined and hallucinatory phenomena in the sense that both are internal representations of external things that are not present at the time.

Some people actually develop fantasy-prone personalities. Cases of FPP have a harder time distinguishing between external reality and their own, internal fantasies. They have also been found to be more easily hypnotized than the general population.

The ability to imagine—and then dwell on—things that are not actually happening can contribute to mental health problems such as anxiety and delusions.

But imagination can also play a powerful role in healing. Guided imagery can be used to help with pain, sleep, nausea, anxiety, anger and fatigue.

Bottom Line: As far as I can determine, there is no downside to creativity, whereas imagination is a two-
edged sword.

PROFESSIONAL ATHLETES: WHAT MAKES THEM TICK?

I’ve been watching the U.S. Open tennis matches, and of course hearing lots of sports talk and announcements about various elite athletes—tennis and otherwise—past, present, and future. And I asked myself, “Who are these people?”

The World Sheepdog Trials will take place this weekend in Northern Ireland. The elite athletes in this competition display many of the same mental traits as those identified in human athletes.

I’ve written before about underlying mental traits that contribute to common personality types (such as optimists, pessimists, addicts, and cult members). As it turns out, whatever your favorite sport, your “heroes” are much the same.

Mental Traits of Elite Athletes

Coco Gauff

New sports science research reveals that there are consistent similarities among athletic super achievers, showing that it’s a lot more than sheer talent. Here are 7 of the top traits that help phenomenal sports stars thrive, that separate the best from the rest. According to the latest sports science research published in the Journal of Applied Sport Psychology and summarized by neurotrackerx.com, here are excerpts of their points.

1. Supreme Concentration

Truly great athletes get into the zone when they need to. A mental state of total focus allows them to channel all their skills into competition when it matters most.

As sports psychologist Dr. Daniel Brown put it, “To concentrate on being a champion, your mind has to be developed to such an extent that you can really stay very tuned in to what you’re doing.”

Patrick Mahomes

2. Commitment to Excellence

Being a perfectionist can be seen as a flaw, but for elite athletes, an obsession with getting it right is a key ingredient to success.

Roy McIlroy

3. Desire and Motivation

To get to the top of their game, it’s often a long hard road that started with an enduring passion to make it happen. As NFL football player and coach Vince Lombardi put it, “Winning isn’t everything, but wanting to win is.”

Michelle Wie

4. Goal Setting

Super-elite athletes always have goals beyond what they have currently achieved. As Michael Jordan said, “You have to expect things of yourself before you can do them.”

5. Positive Mind-state and Optimism

High-achieving athletes are optimistic about their own growth and untapped potential. Sports stars have a great need to work on deficiencies, seeing weaknesses as golden opportunities for improvement. They can imagine success against the odds, envisioning achievement and reward. As soccer super-star Pelé said “The more difficult the victory, the greater the happiness in winning.”

6. Confidence and Self-Belief

Ben Shelton

Professionals in athletics possess a steely inner strength and an unshakeable faith in numero uno. On the flipside, the greater an athlete’s confidence, the more willing they are to keep trying even when failing. Michael Jordan exemplified this belief in learning from failure, because without failure there’s little room for evolving new abilities.

7. High-Quality Relationships and Support

Last but not least, sports stars build strong relationships with people who have their backs. This can be the emotional support from friends and family, the deep camaraderie from training partners or teammates, or a great coach. As Los Angeles Lakers’ Kareem Abdul-Jabbar explained, “One man can be a crucial ingredient on a team, but one man cannot make a team.”

Further Mental Traits of Great Athletes

Katie Ledecky

The Sports Management Degree Guide also lists 20 characteristics of high performing athletes. There’s a lot of overlap with the above, of course. Here’s the list. (I’ve elaborated only on the ones that might not be clear in the previous list.)

1. Self Confidence

2. Strong Sense of Motivation

3. Inner Desire to Succeed

4. Natural Goal Setter

5. Self-Discipline

6. Optimism

7. Sense of Belonging

8. Natural Leader

Madison Keys
  • High-performing athletes tend to be natural leaders both on and off the field. Besides their focus and sense of motivation, they bring out the best in both themselves and those around them.

9. Willingness to Take Criticism

  • Top-tier athletes understand the importance of remaining “coachable” — that is, taking criticism at every opportunity and learning from it.

10. Humility

11. Ability to Manage Stress

  • The stress of losing, the stress of injury, the stress of embarrassing themselves, their coaches, their families — the list never ends—but high-performing athletes manage their stress. Whether that ability comes naturally or has been learned, these athletes are able to compartmentalize their worries to focus on the task at hand.
Mia Hamm

12. Low Anxiety

  • Related to (11): top-tier athletes tend to be low anxiety. They can change strategy or face a challenge without the debilitating nerves that have ruined many other talented people. For some, this is natural. For others, it’s the result of years of hard work spent learning to compartmentalize their greatest fears.

13. Strong Sense of Focus

14. Trust in the Process

15. Resiliency and the Ability to Learn from Setbacks

16. Vulnerability

Breanna Stewart
  • Vulnerable athletes realize that failure is inevitable, and that they can learn more from that failure than they do success. Each time a vulnerable athlete falls, or loses, or makes a game-ending mistake, their resolve to get stronger and better grows.

17. Perfectionism

18. Killer Instinct

  • Many wins come down to a corner cut, a gutsy pass, a risk taken. They have the courage to make tough, spur-of- the-moment decisions that often mean the difference between winning and losing.

19. Willingness to Fight

  • A final push of effort, even when the tank is empty, often separates the winner from the losers. High-performing athletes always cross the finish line having given their all.

20. Appreciation

Devon Singletary
  • High-performing athletes appreciate everything involved in their professions—the good, the bad, and the boring—because they get to continue chasing the goals and the dreams which consume them.

So there we have it: Those who claim to know these things agree that elite athletes are more alike than different. In terms of the most influential of agreed-upon traits, many experts believe that focus and concentration are the most important.

Bottom Line: October has more opportunities for sports lovers than any other single month. Get ready to appreciate what’s behind those great performances.

For more elite athletic performances, check out agility competitions, working dog trials, or dock jumping!

ADDICTIVE PERSONALITY

Not everyone with an addictive personality becomes an addict, and those who do aren’t necessarily addicted to alcohol, drugs, gambling, or tobacco — the usual suspects.

An addictive personality refers collectively to a group of personality traits that may make a person more likely to develop an addiction to something. This can include someone becoming extremely passionate about something and developing an obsession or fixation. Think compulsive buying, game-playing, even exercise.

Tanning addiction
Addictive Personality
Tanning Addiction

The root causes of addiction include trauma, mental health struggles, and genetic predisposition.

“Addiction can be viewed as a form of self-medication that works against psychological suffering.”

Marc Lewis, Neuroscientist

There’s a longstanding myth that some people simply have an addictive personality — a personality type that increases their risk for addiction. However, medical professionals cannot officially diagnose (or even officially define) an addictive personality. Experts generally agree that addictions are rooted in brain disorder, personal history or trauma, genetics, and environment, rather than being a diagnosable psychiatric issue.

In the 1990s, marketers for pharmaceutical companies in the US started using the term addictive personality as part of a campaign to promote painkillers. Representatives for Purdue Pharma told doctors that OxyContin would only cause addiction in patients who already had an “addictive personality.” Blaming patients for becoming addicted to highly addictive painkillers helped to remove the blame from the pharmaceutical industry.

Many people today use the term “addictive personality” as a catch-all to refer to certain personality traits that may increase the chances that a person will develop an addiction of some kind. For example, those who like to take risks and who have little impulse control around experimenting and playing with new experiences and dangerous activities are more likely to try drugs. Nevertheless, no one can perfectly predict who will become addicted after substance use and who will not.

Contributing Factors to Addiction

Plastic Surgery Addiction
Addictive Personality
Plastic Surgery Addiction

According to verywellmind.com, addiction is a complex brain disorder that is the result of a variety of factors. Genetics play a large part in susceptibility to addiction (see above), but other variables including family history, upbringing, environment, socioeconomic status, and drug availability also play a role in a person’s risk of addiction.

The American Psychological Association (APA) stated in a 2008 hearing before the US Congress that “at least half of a person’s susceptibility to drug or alcohol addiction can be linked to genetic factors.”

There is some overlap between an addictive personality and the symptoms of ADHD. Though there is no genetic link between ADHD and addiction, people with ADHD are at a higher risk of developing addictions. Dr. Sarah Johnson, medical director at Landmark Recovery, attributes this to the difficulty people with ADHD have with regulating neurotransmitters such as dopamine and norepinephrine

Some estimate that 10-15% of the population has personality traits that may contribute to an addictive personality. This percentage of the population doesn’t know when to stop and has a more difficult time coping with drugs and alcohol. If you think you or a loved one may have an addictive personality, consider the following addictive personality traits.

Some Signs of Addiction/ Risk of Addiction

Pet Hoarding Addiction
Addictive Peronslity
Pet Hoarding Addiction
  • Always wanting more
  • Continuing despite negative outcomes
  • Inability to follow self-imposed rules
  • Not being able to stop
  • Obsessing
  • Replacing relationships
  • Secrecy
  • Impulsivity
  • Value nonconformity
  • Anxiety
  • Low stress tolerance
  • Sensation seeking
  • Blame shifting
  • Insecurity
  • Irritability
  • Mood swings
  • Poor coping skills
  • Poor self-esteem
  • Selfishness
  • Social isolation or withdrawal
  • Thrill-seeking

Could Addictive Traits Be Helpful?

Some researchers have hypothesized that the risk-seeking tendencies prevalent in addicts played an important role in early human evolution.

According to 12 Keys Rehab, an addictive personality isn’t necessarily a bad trait. Awareness of troubling behaviors and the possibility of negative consequences can actually be very positive when channeled into positive activities and results.

Identifying productive alternative activities that give a pleasure burst is key to channeling an addictive personality into a positive direction. This does not mean substituting one vice for another.

One can channel compulsivity, impulsiveness, and sensation seeking into positive results, for example, by learning new skills, getting in shape, making friendships, and more.  Impulsive people are often viewed as fun to be around due to their spontaneous nature,

An addictive personality can help one achieve goals as long as one is on guard for potential negative impacts. In fact, some experts say that the personality traits of an addict also make for great leaders and business people.

BOTTOM LINE: Many personality traits—including some generally seen as positive—are correlated with the likelihood of developing an addiction. Be self aware!