Turns out I AM the creative type
When I was a child I considered myself creative. I made books by stapling together stacks of paper from beside the telephone and made up stories about families sailing on the ocean. I sang in the school choir, played the clarinet and the saxophone. I very memorably made collages as a teenager, including one full of women’s breasts which my mum threw away 😅 I didn’t think of it as being “creative”—it was just standard operating procedure.
But - much like sport - somewhere along the way I received the message loud and clear that you should only do things you are good at.
I stopped writing for fun. I stopped singing where anyone could hear me. I wasn’t good enough to keep playing the sax. I didn’t make a conscious choice to stop, but I thought only some people were “creative types”, and I was not one of them.
After I had kids, I started to dabble. A photo album here, an edited home movie there, a beautifully decorated cake once in a while. One day a screenplay came to me in a dream, fully formed (I hope one day I will have the chance to share it with the world). And last year I started writing my book. I’ll happily claim “creator” as part of my identity now.
The Saddest Research
I recently heard about research on our creative identities that stopped me in my tracks. It turns out it wasn’t just me.
A NASA-funded study found that 98% of five-year-olds scored at “genius level” on tests measuring creative potential. By age ten, that number dropped to 30%. By age fifteen, just 12%. And in adulthood? Only 2%.
This isn’t a a story about ability. It’s a story about our beliefs, and about the messages we take on as we grow up.
There’s even a name for the dip: the “fourth-grade slump.” Around age 8 or 9, as school becomes more focused on right answers and less on imagination, children’s creative confidence takes a nosedive. We begin to internalise a message many never unlearn: creativity is for other people.
That was me. And maybe it was you, too.
Redefining Creativity
For a long time, I thought that in order to see yourself as creative you needed the world to recognise it too. Have people buy tickets to your concert, purchase your paintings, or attend your shows.
But I’ve come to understand that creativity is broader and deeper than that. It’s how you make meaning. How you find flow. How you connect ideas. How you share your insides with those on the outside.
If you were a creative child (and weren’t we all?) you can be a creative adult. That spark didn’t vanish. It just got buried under expectations, productivity, and years of only participating in things you were already confident in.
Have you recently rediscovered a passion for creating? Share in the comments!