Design a Better Life Through Creativity - Part 5
Make Your Dreams Come True... Get Creative
I had a dream once.
This one’s a fuzzy one but I think I’m at a cocktail party. I’m dressed like Indiana Jones. Hell, I look like Indiana Jones. And damn I’m handsome.
I look like an adventurer, like a hero, now dangling perilously from a cliff with one arm, a beautiful lady in the other. And I can already dream-feel that this hot adventurer lady is my wife. [I don’t see any [young] kids around, so] I suspect we’re about to set fire to this action [set] [flick] with some romance and slap a PG-13 rating [R rating] on this bitch. I look into my sultry lady’s seductive eyes, half-lidded in passion or maybe boredom.
“So what is it that you do?” my ladylove purrs silkily.
[I hold that passionately bored gaze.] {I look into her eyes.
I smirk. I smolder. [Damn I’m handsome.] I tilt her chin towards mine.
“I create for a living,” I say.
“Ha!” barks my wife. “You may as well be digging for treasure without a map.”
She laughs.
I scream.
My handsome face begins to melt.
It’s a shit dream. But I think it’s supposed to be one of those confusing and frustrating dreams that’s really a metaphor for life. Like an adventure movie, life is a treasure hunt and your dreams with a capital D - happiness, success, the life you want to be living - are the treasure. You just need to find a map with some mysterious but excellent instructions, go on an adventure, dodge booby traps and Nazis, then grab that Treasure Chest of Dreams and ride off into the sunset.
Only that’s a shit metaphor. Not total shit. Life is an adventure. Sidestepping booby traps and Nazis along the path to your dreams is legit. But most of our lives aren’t filled with adventure. And your treasure - the happiness, success, the life you want to be living - isn’t hiding [hidden] [in one place]. You’re not going to find a map leading you directly to your treasure,
The problem is that your dreams are unique to you and your life. They’re specific to your interests, values, beliefs, lifestyle and so much more. They’re too complex, too dynamic.
There’s no single [hidden] treasure, or single place to find it - the map you’re trying to find, doesn’t exist.]
[Unless you draw the map yourself.]
Life isn’t about ‘finding’ fulfillment and success--it’s about creating it.1
A good life is designed. Created... living a better life through creativity.2
Creative lives and creative careers are each designed. They happen intentionally.3
Your creativity is the key to drawing your own map and blazing your own path in the adventure flick of life.
By expressing yourself regularly in small ways, you will discover the agency and drive necessary to create the life of your dreams.4
When you’ve designed the path you're blazing you move forward with a purpose.
Creativity is a practice. It’s something you engage in and with daily. It’s something you improve through use.
It is a superpower [link to “superpower” article] that allows you to see around walls and make connections [between unrelated ideas. and… (what are the other benefits to creativity?)]. It’s the bullwhip that helps scale the next wall and swing over the next obstacle. The walls keeping you from… the connections linking this and that…
Am I saying that simply drawing or playing an instrument a few times a week will magically improve your life?
Not exactly.
(Though if you do, you are probably happier than when you don’t. I know I am. And that enjoyment is kind of magical.}
I’m saying that developing a creative practice is a starting point to designing your own path
And if you want to unleash [the power of your creativity] [your creative power], you must work on practicing/developing/building/harnessing it regularly.
[Creative pursuits] changes your mind, instilling the notion that you can shape your environment and your experience. It gives you an unshakeable sense of agency.5
[When you’ve designed the path you're blazing you move forward with a purpose.]
Creativity is the Foundation
Creativity is a critical human function. It imbues every incident we experience in life—every sight, sound, and texture—with profound meaning. Without acknowledging and exercising our creativity in small, consistent ways, we’re undermining our natural capacity to Imagine, Design, Execute, and Amplify the life we’re meant to be living.6
Creativity is the cornerstone. It’s the core, the heart, the thrust. It’s the thread tying everything together.
A life without creativity lacks intention, shape, and connection to our own humanity. Without creativity to reveal our own agency, we become a cork bouncing in the tide…7
Creativity is your torch guiding you as you blaze, adventure,... forward.
Establishing a creative practice is the foundation for whatever it is you seek.8
Create your life with your creativity
It took some time to realize that the only way to have a chance at everything I wanted from my life was by taking ownership for creating it.9
Drawing your own map {and blaze your own path…}, gives you more options, more possibilities.
so that you can create a life only you are capable of living.
Your creativity is what allows you to draw that map.
Your creativity is “the ability to make your ideas manifest in the world. It’s problem solving.”10
Identifying as a creative person... manifesting your ideas regularly, you will intuitively create the life you truly want for yourself.11
So what do you do now?
You take action. You develop creative practice.
To start a creative practice, bust out The Rule of Thirds for a Creative Life and focus on three things:
- Develop a Creative Mindset
- Develop Creative Goals & Habits
- Create Everyday (or at least regularly)
The thing about creativity: You don’t need to see the whole path. You just have to take the next step12
To take the next step and get started right now, click here.
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