YOU'RE MORE CREATIVE THAN YOU THINK BY MADELINE CONROY

Since I’ve been a part of the ESP program at Miami, I have always felt like I was an imposter.  I felt like I wasn’t smart enough, wasn’t creative enough, not bold enough, you name it.  Professor Friedman has told me time and time again that it’s all in my head and I’m capable, but it’s hard to believe him when you have a completely different narrative going on in your own brain.  

I was in his virtual office hours recently, ranting to him once again about how I don’t think I’m good enough.  He said something to me that I knew, but never really wanted to admit to myself.  He told me about “Ugly Sister Syndrome” and how I have a terrible case of it.  I have known that I have that for a while now, but I had never thought about it in terms of it limiting my creativity.

We’ve all been told throughout our time in the Entrepreneurship program at Miami to always push for the second right answer and dig deeper.  However, we have been so conditioned as students to always strive for the perfect answer.  Creativity is not something you can perfect, and it is not something you can be good or bad at.  There are thousands of right answers.  I have thought for so long that if my answer isn’t like someone else’s, it is worse.  

However, it’s the opposite: it’s just looking at it from a different angle.