“The best in us” is our deepest creative essence, psychologist Galina Ivanchenko believes. This creative impulse from birth makes you move forward and manifests itself through talents and abilities. How to take advantage of this potential?
Psychologies: Talents, knowledge, intuition… Why can’t everyone take full advantage of this wealth?
Galina Ivanchenko: The society in which we live rarely allows us to show the best qualities. And we lose touch with our talents, with the best in ourselves. At the same time, everyone has creative potential.
One of the founders of humanistic psychology, Carl Rogers, spoke in this connection of “human potential.” He believed that personal growth largely depends on how we realize a deep creative need, which is especially evident in childhood: each child is a creator in his own way. But with age, everything changes – growing up, children begin to focus on the approval of adults who are rarely ready to accept their fantasies and ideas. And children begin to conform to the standards.
The race for achievements makes it difficult to understand that far from everything comes down to the scale of values that society offers.
American psychologist Paul Torrance cites interesting data: about 60% of outstanding people were unsuccessful in school1. The reason is the same – their creativity and talent did not fit into the current system.
But we live in a world that constantly encourages achievement. Isn’t this a stimulus to the creative search for our best “I”?
Today, these searches are usually associated with competition, with the desire to “be better than others.” But in most cases, such competition and the race for achievements make it difficult to understand that far from everything comes down to the scale of values that society offers. Within everyone lies a creative principle that needs to be developed. As a result, for many, this deep power is suppressed, and an abyss forms between it and the personality.
How new is this trend?
In traditional society, it was also present, since everyone was initially given his social “ceiling” and the corresponding lifestyle and activities.
Today, due to the growth of information flows and the abundance of advertising indicating what needs to be met and what to strive for, the requirements of society have become much more intrusive and unified. Not everyone knows how to defend themselves against them, trust themselves, their knowledge, intuition, talent.
When do we have a desire to determine our true worth?
The need for this often arises among those who have already gained life experience: they changed several jobs and even professions, visited different countries, but … never met themselves.
Another reason is that the quality of daily work is often not affected by whether we show the best in ourselves or just formally fulfill our duties. So there is a feeling of one’s own replaceability, but it is precisely this that pushes one to look for hidden qualities, abilities, and dignity.
Is it possible to find yourself real, relying only on your best qualities? Are we not ignoring our own weaknesses, essentially engaging in self-deception?
Our task is to see the strengths and weaknesses as an instrument for personal self-improvement. Thanks to strong qualities, strive for something more, and not consider weak ones fatalistically (“What a horror!”) – instead, recognize them, work with them, look for situations where the risk of their manifestation is minimal. The task of each is to achieve what only he can, relying on a unique combination of strengths and weaknesses.
Well built pyramid
What drives our behavior? What motives and needs make us be active, active, not afraid of mistakes, take risks? The American psychologist Abraham Maslow singled out several groups of needs – he writes about this in his work “Motivation and Personality” (Peter, 2007): some of them make up for what we feel is lacking, the other is the needs of growth and development. But until the lower (physiological) needs are satisfied, we cannot strive for spiritual achievements. If we are thirsty, we are unlikely to think about something else. The pyramid of needs idea was first published in 1943. However, 11 years later, Maslow abandoned the idea of hierarchy: he recognized that often those who experience hunger, cold, or the need for security find themselves striving for higher motives associated with creativity and the desire for self-development.
Maslow’s pyramid needs from lowest to highest:
- Physiological needs for food, water, rest, sex.
- Need for security: It is important for us to feel secure, confident and stable.
- The need for affection, acceptance, attachment and love.
- The need for respect: for positive self-esteem, for recognition and respect from others.
- The need for self-actualization, the fullest possible disclosure of one’s potential.
What advice would you give to those who are genuinely upset, “I don’t have any talents…”?
I would say that when changing a life, it is important to remain cautious, prudent, careful – as if you are handling something that is especially valuable and fragile. It happens that a person hardly knows himself, because he has never been alone with himself, afraid to think about his own life. Then he needs to use every opportunity to hear the inner voice, to understand what causes boredom and what causes pleasure.
Boredom and pleasure are the criteria for which path we are moving on – right or wrong?
Yes, and it’s especially helpful to pay attention to boredom. She is a chance to meet ourselves, to feel that we have outgrown some kind of activity or relationship.
Pleasure is more difficult. If we limit ourselves to simple pleasures that do not require mental labor – for example, an evening with chips in front of the TV, constant reading of tabloid novels – we will stop in internal development. And it’s easy to get fed up with those feelings.
Pleasures of a different order – informal communication, new knowledge, creativity, a good quality film or novel – although sometimes they require effort, they give a feeling of joy from the fact that we are developing, changing, moving forward … to ourselves.
About it
- Carl Rogers, A Perspective on Psychotherapy. The Formation of Man” (Progress Univers, 1994).
- Rollo May Courage to Create (Initiative, IOI, 2001).
About expert
Galina Ivanchenko – Doctor of Philosophy, Candidate of Psychological Sciences, Professor of the State University – Higher School of Economics. Author of several books, including “The Logos of Love” (Sense, 2007).
1 P. Torrance «Creativity in the Сlassroom». National Education Association,1977.