Failure in Creativity

Project Failure

As repeatedly emphasized, failure is a way station on the journey to creative success.

Nevertheless, you must recognize that failure in a creative project, i.e. definite unequivocal failure in society's eyes and your own, occurs to us all, and perhaps more often to those who are most creative. Any project may fail or not deliver as socially expected, but that does not mean your creativity failed.

The challenge-RG7 may be conceived in a moment, but its creative delivery takes time. A lot can happen. The creative state, with its focus and alertness, helps warn you of dangers and leads you to possibilities. However, external factors impossible to predict or, if predictable, impossible to avoid, can always defeat you. To determine whether you were creative, just answer some simple questions:

  • Did you rise to the challenge and activate your creative energies?
  • Did you do the best you could?
  • Did you learn anything from the experience?

Creativity Failure

Creativity failure refers to a failure to activate and deploy creative energies when that is natural, possible and required.

Within creativity, those energies depend particularly on the two highest willpower components: full willingness-RG17 and constant purpose-RG16. Weakness here leads to weakness in powerful higher Groups like dedication-RG26, enthusiastic self-activation-RG35, surrender-RG44, passion -RG43 and determination-RG51.

Some states—like self-doubt, complacency, faintheartedness, vacillation, disconnection, procrastination, issue avoidance, drifting, mistrust and fuzzy thinking—interfere with numerous creativity-related elements in the framework. If they are not transient, they will be fatal to any creative effort.

The extreme harmful uses of the elements of Will-RH naturally vitiate the creative component in living. See some in this Table.

  Will Element Self-directed Other-directed
RL7 Willingness Destructiveness Negativity
RL6 Purpose Nihilism Irresponsibility
RL5 Communication Blather Cynicism
RL4 Experience Addiction Sociopathy
RL3 Change Disruption Power-Lust
RL2 Inquiry Scepticism Closed-mindedness
RL1 Action Violence Coercion


Originally posted: 17-Feb-2012.