32 Traits of Creative People

By Robert Alan Black, Ph.D.

BROKEN CRAYONS and the act of BREAKING CRAYONS represent creativeness, creative thinking and the efforts of creative people to me.

How often do you BREAK CRAYONS? Lets take a look. The following is a short exercise that will help you discover how easily you BREAK CRAYONS.

Are You a Crayon BREAKER?

Read over the following 32 human traits and check or mark the ones you believe are you at work or school, if you are not working full-time. You may choose as many or as few as you want. Some definitions are provided for words that are often mis-understood or may be unfamiliar to you.

Once you have completed reading and marking your choices, total up how many you chose and write that number down. Then continue reading.

Some Definitions

can synthesize
you see patterns or the big picture quickly.

divergent thinker
look at things in many different ways at the same time.

flexible
willing to try things in many different ways.

fluent
produce lots of ideas or possibilities when working on a challenge or simply choosing a restaurant to go to.

open-ended
don't fix on a single idea, keep looking for many different ideas or ways to do things.

self-actualizing
focus on developing yourself to the best you can be and to discover your specific unique talents.

sense of destiny
believe that you have a special mission or purpose in life you plan or hope to fulfill.

tolerant of ambiguity
accept multiple answers or causes to a single problem or challenge.

32 Traits of Creative People Checklist

How many did you mark? 5, 10, 15, 20, all of them? Occasionally people will mark all of them if they don't feel intimated by others in the group or by me.

Each of these traits, if emphasized mildly to strongly, will help you be more creative. Any of these, if emphasized extremely, could yield disastrous results. Number 28 (severely critical) is often one that people do not mark because of the feeling of the word severely. But think about it. Aren't highly creative people extremely critical? When they are, what are they most critical of?

Themselves or their work. Often they are their own worst critics (or enemies).

Next: Creative Traits Explained »

© 1990 Robert Alan Black, Ph.D.

About the Author | More by Robert Alan Black
RAB, Inc. — Cre8ng People, Places & Possibilities • P. O. Box 5805 Athens, Georgia 30604-5805 • alan@cre8ng.com • www.cre8ng.com 1-706-353-3387

5/9/06