How to Live Creatively

All the breaks you need in life wait within your imagination, Imagination is the workshop of your mind, capable of turning mind energy into accomplishment and wealth." -Napoleon Hill, Author of Think and Grow Rich.

Life takes creativity. Solving problems takes creativity. Seeing the positive side of failures and setbacks takes creativity. I can't think of an area of life that doesn't take creativity.

So how can you practice living with creativity? It starts with curiosity. Think of some current areas of stress in your life. Examples might include feeling tired, wanting to lose weight, being worried about finances. List them first as problems, then take some time to turn them into questions (helps to actually write this down). How can I increase my energy? How can I lose weight? How can I make extra income? Reframing these issues as questions invites your creative side to participate in the conversation. Even if you don't have the answers right away, your brain has an assignment - something to chew on rather than worry about.

This worked particularly well for me last summer. After purchasing a number of plane tickets in the same month, I knew I would be about $1,000 short of being able to pay my credit card bill. I was really, really worried about this and didn't know how on earth I would come up with the money. First I posed this concern as a question: How can I make $1,000 to pay my credit card bill? I brainstormed a list of things I could do, narrowed it down, and started doing HTML/CSS/Dreamweaver tutoring as a side job. Once I had a potential solution I turned my question into a clearly stated goal: "Make $1,000 doing web tutoring by August 1." And lo and behold, I did!