Creative Confidence: Unleashing The Creative Potential In All Of Us by Tom and David Kelley (HarperCollins, £9.99)
ILLUSTRATION: LESLEY BUCKINGHAM
We often conflate creativity with artistic skill, yet the two are different. Creativity is the ability to generate new ideas and solve problems in all aspects of our lives, not just in artistic pursuits, whether that’s coming up with a new product or improving a service at work, organising our homes or planning social events. What often gets in the way is fear that our ideas will seem stupid, or that we won’t be able to ‘fill the blank page’. Our own internal judgements can also stop us challenging ourselves to push beyond our initial ideas.
This book advocates that we can all develop greater creative confidence. The key is taking small steps and failing fast and often. Great creative thinkers don’t just have good ideas, they work at generating more ideas, many of which are bad ones, but which help them learn what works by seeing what doesn’t.