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Tag: Creative Read

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I liked this book. It really felt good right now, when I am doing some reinventing and bringing myself back to beginner mind and fresh takes. I'm always buoyed by cute graphics with encouraging words, too, so I enjoyed running across those throughout the book.

Things I particularly liked:

  • The examination of job, career, and calling
  • The should list and the questions to ask about each of our personal shoulds
  • The 10 minute activities and small steps to help you find your must
  • The obituary activity
  • The fears list activity

Not my favorite stuff:

  • I think we need to talk more about fitting your musts into your should world, because for most of us that's how it's going to look. I think most of our paths are going to have our shoulds and our musts walking side-by-side. This was addressed more in the last half of the book, but I felt like it should have been acknowledged earlier. We need to fit our must in with paying bills and meeting our everyday obligations and needs.
  • The idea that everyone is born with a calling they just need to find. I think sometimes we realize we want a calling or passion, and we can go out and experiment and create one. But it doesn't have to be some big birthright sort of thing. It's okay to develop a calling in your 90s if that's where you find yourself, and if it's not something you were interested in during childhood, that's just fine.
  • Not the fault of the book or anything about the writing, but this didn't work for me as an ebook. This book is meant to be read in full color.

Overall, I liked this. It returned my focus to what I want to be doing. It reminded me that there are things I can do even on days when I'm exhausted, depressed, in pain, whatever. It made me want to get up and do things, and that's the thing I loved the most.

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You're not a sketcher? You don't draw? Get back here! This book is still for you. Maybe you'll even want to try out some of the drawing exercises. Even if you don't, give this book a read.

The parts about developing a habit and breaking the rules apply to every creative as does the section on fitting in your creative practice. The encouraging talk about trying new things and dodging perfectionism will speak to pretty much all of us, too, I think. And I completely love "The Week of Living Artfully." We can do this with any kind of work we do!

That's the magic of this book. It's about drawing, but you can easily see how you could adapt this to whatever art form you are working with. It really is about finding a zillion ways to be creative.

Ways to use this book if you don't draw:

  • Change each exercise to fit your chosen art form
  • Write about how the exercises make you feel about your own art (or in general)
  • Take photos representing each exercise
  • Try the drawing stuff anyhow

Finally, my favorite takeaway: "Every time you find a reason not to create, the art you mihgt have made doesn't exist."

Go make something.

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I actually finished this about two weeks ago. I've been procrastinating about writing this blog post, which is really kind of funny given the subject of the book. Don't let my lack of finishing this post right away keep you from reading the book, though. There's a lot in here that's great food for thought, and I think quite a bit of this is going to be useful.

Part of why I couldn't get started on writing this is because I felt like I have too much to say about the book, and I wanted to be concise and write something good and so on. Then I remembered to actually take some advice from the book; I changed my goal, simplified, made it easier. What I'm going to do instead of the big, complicated post I thought I needed is give you some lists. So, here you go.

Things I Especially Liked:

  • Every chapter gives you steps to take, actual actions you can do to help you
  • There are lots of examples of people using these ideas (I do wish there weren't so many about weight loss and sports, but they're still helpful)
  • There's a whole chapter on ways to measure your progress
  • There's a focus on making goals smaller, giving yourself more time--all the Kaizen Muse small step goodness
  • The whole chapter about hiding places and noble obstacles (ways we can avoid trying to reach our goals and still feel like we're doing something good)

Favorite Advice:

  • Make it fun if you want it done (joyless goals fail)
  • Don't try to get everything in place before taking action
  • Choose what to bomb (aka strategic incompetence)
  • Attainable goals are motivating
  • Finishers make things easier and simpler
  • This is our life's work--it should be something we love that feels important to us and that we get enjoyment and satisfaction from

So that's it. Short-ish and to the point. Read the book. Definitely take the steps. Most importantly, let's all get out there and finish our stuff!

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