My children spend more time building with Lego than just about anything else. Almost always, what they make is surprising, unexpected, startlingly new.
I want to share some observations from when a totally different thing enters the picture: the Lego building challenges.
For days after they read about a new “challenge” (build a dream home, build some kind of robot, etc.) they’ll work and re-work a project and pester us to photograph them and worry about whether or not they’ll win. Here’s the surprising part:
When they are building for the contest — for that $100 gift card and their picture in the magazine — their creations are startlingly less creative. All of a sudden, they are timid and anxious about their creations. Honestly, their for-contest work is always inferior to their regular work.
Why does this matter? Because I think it shows us something important about motivation and its effect on creativity.
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