What Determines a Creative Life? What Determines Success?

Filed Under Motivation/Inspiration, Successful Blog | 17 Comments

Determination

Creativity at Work

“Square peg in a round hole.” That’s what people used to call it.

Even as a kid I knew it was a silly waste of time to put a square peg in a round hole. That was just plain common sense To make the peg fit, it wouldn’t be a square peg anymore. It would hurt the peg, and the hole wouldn’t like it.

What makes some people grow up to live highly creative lives? Is it in their genes — “the way the tree was bent”? Is a creative life determined by their experience?

Yet, what is astonishing is the great variety of paths that led to eminence. Csikszentmihalyi

Though the 91 creative people in the study that became the book, Creativity, had unique characteristics and traits that made them stand out. The life paths that led to their creative contribution were not particularly different from what you might find any group of 91 citizens.

  • Some were precocious. Some were prodigies. Some didn’t seem to stand out as children.
  • Some had serious hardship growing up. Some suffered the death of parents. Others had happy childhoods without incident.
  • Some were ignored. Some had guides and teachers who helped their development. Some had devastating experiences with mentors.
  • Some seemed to always know their calling. Some searched for years to find their path.
  • Some were noticed early. Some struggled for years to gain recognition.

Those same circumstances describe the people I call my friends, none of whom yet have changed the world through Creativity with a capital C.


It seems that the men and women we studied were not shaped once and for all, either by their genes or by the events of early life. . . . Instead of being shaped by events, they shaped events to suit their purposes. . . .

According to this view, a creative life is still determined, but what determines it is a will moving across time — the fierce determination to succeed, to make sense of the world, to use whatever means to unravel some of the mysteries of the universe. Csikszentmihalyi

Fierce determination to succeed.

Success doesn’t happen without giving ourselves over fully to what we’re pursuing. It’s not the barriers that stop us, it’s the way we respond to them.

If we’re determined, we maneuver over, under, around, or through them. It doesn’t matter how difficult the problem we stick with it until we innovate, create, or cobble together a solution that solves it.

ladder_over_wall_from_sxchu

Determination removes options other than success: We refuse to define our outcomes as:

  • the fault of our parents.
  • an imperfection in our environment.
  • the result of bad timing.
  • bad luck or bad karma.
  • something outside of us.

As determination to succeed is key to world-changing creativity, it seems to follow that determination and creativity are key to success.

How have determination and creativity contributed in your past success? What are you determined to accomplish now?

–ME “Liz” Strauss
Work with Liz!!
Image: sxc.hu

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Find a Moment of Gold

Filed Under Motivation/Inspiration, Successful Blog | 4 Comments

Put Gold in What You’re Doing Now

Yellow_Lily_by_Liz_Strauss

We’ve all had one — a moment of gold, a moment when the sun shines on us, and we’re something made of success. How we got there was part head, part heart, and a whole lot of determination that knocked down walls as we went.

In a moment of gold, some folks don’t understand what makes that moment so worth celebrating. Ah, to them, what we’ve some seems a small thing, but we know that the distance from point A to point B was not a straight or simple line. Math might always be. Life hardly ever is.

With all of the choices that move us forward, with all of the wishes and plans that our hearts hold, we need to be sure that we savor our accomplishments and celebrate our successes. Those golden moments are what propel us forward to make more spectacular things happen.

Stop a minute. Recall the sunlight. Find a moment of gold from your past.

What can you take from that moment to fuel what you’re doing now?

–ME “Liz” Strauss
Work with Liz!!

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Show Your Workspace Some Love

Filed Under Motivation/Inspiration, Successful Blog | 5 Comments

I Don’t Read Your Desk

Messy Desk


Productivity.
A desk is like a garage — it’s where you keep your tools. It helps if it’s organized, but your car will run fine when it is not. But messy writing is a sign of messy thinking. It’s proof our ideas aren’t under control. No one wants to be behind the wheel with someone who can’t keep the car on the road.

The thing is it’s a whole lot easier to do clear focused thinking when we don’t see clutter all around us looking back. If we take a few minutes to straighten where we work, our thought come through more easily. Here’s a way to make work more motivating when you return Monday morning.

Friday’s Answer to a Motivated Monday

Finish your last work task early on Friday, so that you have time to complete this list. If you’re working late this week, do all you can to take a “last half hour” anyway. On Monday morning, you’ll be glad you did.

  • Put things done away.
  • Lay out things that still need attending to. Mark what needs to be done. Make a to-do list, if that’s your way.
  • Use the things you laid out to make a plan for next week. Decide what you will tackle first and what your three most important goals will be.
  • Order the Monday tasks by putting what you can get done fastest first. Do this for two reasons. You’ll quickly have a sense of accomplishment, and you’ll be able to pass on what you finished to someone else can take that piece to the next step.

Then consider the week closed, leave the work at the office, give your brain a break, and have a weekend. What a great way to remind yourself and everyone else that you can enjoy your job — head for the weekend with an office that looks like it could be in a magazine . . .

Whether you work in a building away from home or in your bedroom, it’s boost to your Monday to walk back into a space that’s ready to work in.

Don’t you think the way that we take care of ourselves shows in our work? Show your workspace some love. You’ll feel it back guaranteed.

–ME “Liz” Strauss

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What is He Talking About? Chris Cree on Order

Filed Under One Way to CC It, Successful Blog | 4 Comments

“First things first. But not necessarily in that order.” –Doctor Who

One Way to CC It logo

Liz said something very kind to me the other day.

We were catching up on some post conference details when she said, “Chris, you are a Choreographer of Success. You clear roadblocks so things can get done.”

That’s me. Mr. Snow-Plow.

I clear the way and things happen.

I guess you could say I’m sorta like Doctor Who, but on a much smaller scale.
Doctor Who
I mean the good Doctor seems to chronically stumble onto some sort of doomsday end-of-humanity scenario. Then he’ll figure out exactly what needs to be done (and no more), and get it done just in the nick of time. All with a cheery attitude and a touch of drama (of course). And then he slides off into the Tardis as anonymously as possible.

One of the tricks to being a successful snow plow (a snow plow of success?) is the ability to prioritize well. And that obviously means the ability to put first things first.

Except when it doesn’t.

The thing is we try so hard to formula-ize things like success as though we can follow a recipe or program ourselves like a computer to achieve success. There is a whole industry making a ton of money selling people all kinds of formulas.

Some work better than others, no doubt.

But the truth is success isn’t so much a set of action steps as it is a montage of guiding principles that when collectively applied produce desirable results.

One trick is to know when to keep first things first. And then recognize those times when you will get better results doing something else first. Unfortunately I haven’t found the formula that will tell the difference every time.

Until I come up with one, I’ll just plow on. Like the good Doctor, I’ll keep applying what I know and making the rest up as I go.

And that’s just the Way I C it.

–Chris Cree, SuccessCREEations.

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Would You Change 3 Things You Think to Get to Your $Million Dream?

Filed Under Bloggy Questions, Business Life, Outside the Box, Strategy, Successful Blog | 16 Comments

Thinking smal-L —> B-ig Thinking

Finding Ideas Outside of the Box logo 2

Everyone should have a dream, something they strive for, somewhere they want to be. What’s yours? Do you really want your dream or is it a romance and a fairy tale that you talked yourself out of a long time ago?

I’ve been thinking about dreams and goals. I’ve figured out that only three roadblocks keep dreams and people apart. All 3 are things that we think and what we do because we think them.

If I tell you what they are, would you change the way you think to chase after that dream of yours? Read more

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