Believe in your potential, then it can be revealed to you.

It's very hard to see a potential you don't believe you have.

I've been fortunate enough to have always believed I had potential. Even when I was very young, and despite some difficult years. I had a believe in my own potential, even though I didn't know how it would look. Sometimes I thought I knew, then I would go in another direction. I would try something new and I'd have to re-imagine what my future might look like. Maybe that's what potential is; The ability to keep moving. But the nature of my potential is being revealed to me all the time. With every new medium I try, I learn something about myself.

When I draw, I'm imaginative. When I'm curious about I new subject, I'm persistent. When I write, I'm conceptual. Different activities bring out different aspects of who I enjoy being.

But our true & highest potential is revealed when we combine those things we enjoy. When talents, ideas, & dreams combine.

(For confidence & courage series)

Steve writes & coaches about Creative & Career Development

You can find Steve at: www.ineedtocreate.com

A house fire can stop your progress for a year, self doubt can stop you for a decade.

Self doubt is the triumph of the inner critic.

I've watch many movies were the hero is battling with his arch enemy. The hero is winning a few battles then there's that common scene when the hero is stopped in his tracks; He's experiencing a moment of self doubt. Something he has ignored up till then has finally hit him in his moment of trial.

These moments of self doubt can be triggered by many things:

Seeds of doubt sown:

Some one had said or done something that has caused you to doubt your abilities, motivations or potential.

Doubt of comparison:

You've looked at the accomplishments of others & thought that you could never equal or exceed what they have done.

Doubts about doing new things:

Life is (or should be) about learning new things, trying new things and experiencing new things. With that comes the thoughts that you may not be able to learn what you feel you need to learn. Or, if you attempt new things, you might fail or be hurt in some way. Or a new experience won't be pleasant or beneficial.

Doubts are mainly about survival. Surviving a situation or a process. Doubts are the way we question the possibility that we may be worse off if we try something new. We reason that trying something could make us vulnerable professionally, socially, financially or physically.

This survival instinct is there for our benefit but past experiences can distort it to the point that it actually makes survival difficult. As the old saying goes, "You have to take the good with the bad". Meaning, there's a lot of good things out there, but we need to accept that experiencing some of the bad is just a normal part of life. For every good thing, there's also a fear (no matter how small) that the same thing might not work out as first hoped. Even if later that fear proved to be unnecessary.

When we realise that doing new things are critical for our physical, emotional, psychological, relational, professional and financial survival, we will be more likely to make the attempt.

(For confidence & courage series)

Steve writes & coaches about Creative & Career Development

You can find Steve at: www.ineedtocreate.com

Your only duty is to do what you are uniquely made to do.

Many times I wanted to do two completely opposite things at the same time. I had the enthusiasm but no process for making decisions. The only constant I had, was my desire to be creative, but again, doing what? So many options, so little time to explore them. The real problem was, I didn't know how I was made.

Plus I had responsibilities to be at places at certain times, and to do things I didn't care for. I needed to work.

'Duty' is a concept that can take over your whole life if you let it. At least, having a sense of duty.

The Chinese seem to have a strong concept of Duty built into their culture. Many children have a duty to go and work in a factory hundreds of kilometres aways so they can send some money back to help support their parents. Often only seeing there family once a year. Its hard for me to imagine having this expectation places on me.

I watched a documentary about a chinese family where the adult children organised a birthday party for their mother at a restaurant. The mother didn't smile once the whole night. She probably thought that it was her children's duty to honour her as a thank you for raising them.

I went to a Chinese wedding like that. The new mother in law didn't smile all day.

I went to a chinese restaurant once. After the meal I told the waiter that the food was excellent. He look at me and said. "Thank you, It's our duty".

In a western culture, we have a different relationship to Duty. Its more of a volunteer thing. We give ourselves in duty to the country or serve as a trained protector of the community.

We all have a duty of care to our family & people who need our help, but apart from that, our main duty is to do what we are uniquely made to do. To use our talents that we have to the best standard we can. To only work in areas that are compatible with our personality, and to make the dream in us come true. Anything more than that just complicates life.

For the choices series(decisions & wisdom)

You can find Steve at: www.ineedtocreate.com

You don't really expect to get it, if you resent people who already got it.

It's interesting to listen to people talking about rich, famous or successful people. Especially hearing there theories on what they must have done to get where they are. Some say they are just lucky. Or had the right education, had family connections, must have been the boys club, must have lied & cheated their way to the top, must have been power hungry or greedy, must have stolen that idea, must have ripped people off, must have made a secret deal, or must have squashed the competition.

In all these theories, they assume that the person didn't deserve to be successful on a professional level for some reason. So they resent the fact that those people made it & they haven't.

But everyone hopes to find success in their life. They probably want the same things for themselves.

If you believe that success isn't deserved by people who have it, then how can you expect to be successful yourself?

The truth is, a lot of successful people got to where they are through years of hard work, sacrifice and dedication to their role in life. You can too.

For the choices series(decisions & wisdom)

You can find Steve at: www.ineedtocreate.com

You can't create your own truth, but you can create from what is true about you.

There are a lot of philosophies out there. It's been like that since the ancient Greeks.

To make things more complicated, there are many mixtures of these philosophies. Then you get trends & cycles where similar philosophies reappear every few years or so.

Some people probably say to themselves, "I don't know what the truth is, I'm just going to create my own truth". So they take the position that truth is relative, my truth is true for me and your truth is true for you. (That in it's self is a philosophy).

Truth is a sensitive subject for some people, because truth has become 'my truth' and 'your truth'. And who's to say that 'your truth' is better than 'my truth'. You see the problem?

But there's a big difference between 'creating your truth', and 'Creating a life from what is true about you'.

 There are things that are true about you that you didn't create. You didn't decide on a lot of things that make up who you are. We are a combination of natural ability, personality & education. We live in an environment that is a combination of economy, climate and culture. How we choose to combine these internal and external factors, becomes the life we create for ourselves. We create from what is true about us.

For the choices series(decisions & wisdom)

You can find Steve at: www.ineedtocreate.com

Never let admiration turn into envy.

We live in a society that admires only a few professions more than all the others, and admires only the top 5% of people working in those professions.

They're easy to admire. Everyone else does. They're the actors & musicians and other entertainers. We admire their work. We admire their popularity. We admire their success. We admire their wealth. So most people only admire 25% of who they are.

Then we look at our life. We find ourselves in the "Everyone else" basket.

But when we start to admire the success more than their work, envy creeps in. We know they are ridiculously over payed for what they do, but we still can't help comparing ourslives to theres.

We can start to resent the grossly uneven distribution of rewards that are given.

But envy is a barrier to self-discovery and work satisfaction. If we know the work we love to do, & we can see it going somewhere, then that is the real success.

For the choices series (decisions & wisdom)

You can find Steve at: www.ineedtocreate.com

You wouldn't criticise or ignore a child that shows you his artwork. But we do that to the artist within

Many time one of my children would come up to me with a piece of artwork they had just done. Every time I would take the time to say how beautiful it is. I would never criticise it or ignore them. Even when I was busy, I would still stop what I was doing and admire their work.

We all have an inner child, who is also an artist. But when our inner child brings us a picture in the form of an idea or concept, we often totally ignore it. Or we are too quick to criticise it.

We can wound ourselves in that way by being too hard on ourselves. We can think, "That can't be any good because I thought of it".

So eventually our inner child stops bring our conscious, rational, adult mind those very ideas that might actually benefit us. You need to see your "childish" ideas as something that can often lead to something much better. We need to be like a good parent to the part of us that needs our protection and attention.

For the 'being born creative' series (childhood creativity)

You can find Steve at www.ineedtocreate.com

We're not born with choices but some continue to believe they don't have any.

"We can't choose the life we're born into but eventually we can choose to create the life we want".

None of us got to choose which family we were born into.

Some people are luckier than others when it comes to the circumstances of their birth.

For most people, they remember their humble beginnings. You can only hope that you were loved and provided for as best as was possible.

My own childhood was less than ideal. But it is safe to say, I was at a distinct disadvantage from day one. I was healthy but beyond that, I had a lot of hard lessons to learn about this world.

Of course, I'm not alone in this. Many grow up knowing they have little or no choice about how they were raised.

If you are lucky enough to survive your childhood in one piece, you may well look back and think that IS life. Many people grow into adults, believing that they still have no choices about their life.

For a long time I believed this as well.

Many young adults either haven't learnt to make good decisions or they made decisions that actually made it harder to make other decisions that would give them a better future.

What I want everyone to know is, they have more choices to do the work they love than in any time in history. We all have more choices than we realise. The world is a big place, but its big in a good way. It's full of opportunities for those that choose to look for them or create them.

For the 'being born creative' series (childhood creativity)

You can find Steve at www.ineedtocreate.com

Yes, we are all born creative. It's just that we are all creative in different ways.

So many people look at creativity as a very narrow definition. They say to themselves that they aren't creative. Meaning, they can't draw, can't sing, can't play music, can't write books and can't act.

Firstly, I believe that most people can do at least one of these with a little direction. Most people have a hidden talent for something, even if they think they don't.

People don't think they have a natural talent for something, generally they look at well known creative people and think they aren't like them. So they assume they don't have any talent at all.

But we are all born creative. Often the most creative thing anyone has ever done is to combine two things that they were interested in. That way they became creative in a highly original way.

Our different  personalities define the different ways we choose to create, and the different areas we are attracted to. People approach problems and tasks differently. Some focus on every detail. Some focus on multiple solutions. Some focus on how best to meet the needs of people. Some work best in groups and some like to do most of their work in solitude.

When you know your personality better, you will know that you are creative, just creative in your own way.

For the 'being born creative' series (childhood creativity)

You can find Steve at www.ineedtocreate.com

We're not born with choices but some continue to believe they don't have any.

"We can't choose the life we're born into but eventually we can choose to create the life we want".

None of us got to choose which family we were born into.

Some people are luckier than others when it comes to the circumstances of their birth.

For most people, they remember their humble beginnings. You can only hope that you were loved and provided for as best as was possible.

My own childhood was less than ideal. But it is safe to say, I was at a distinct disadvantage from day one. I was healthy but beyond that, I had a lot of hard lessons to learn about this world.

Of course, I'm not alone in this. Many grow up knowing they have little or no choice about how they were raised.

If you are lucky enough to survive your childhood in one piece, you may well look back and think that IS life. Many people grow into adults, believing that they still have no choices about their life.

For a long time I believed this as well.

Many young adults either haven't learnt to make good decisions or they made decisions that actually made it harder to make other decisions that would give them a better future.

What I want everyone to know is, they have more choices to do the work they love than in any time in history. We all have more choices than we realise. The world is a big place, but its big in a good way. It's full of opportunities for those that choose to look for them or create them.

For the 'being born creative' series (childhood creativity)

You can find Steve at www.ineedtocreate.com

We all have personal highlights, things we have done that are signposts to an ideal future

Everyone can look back into their childhood and remember something they did that they wouldn't mind doing again in some form now.

Too often people grow up and quickly lose their way. They vaguely remember those good days when they created something that made it a personal highlight. But too few people look at those early highlights as sign-posts for the future.

In those events, were a good clue to a great future. If you had parents that recorded these highlights, it makes it easier to remember what they all were. But they may be the same things you daydream about today.

Thats why it's always good to record your own highlights, because they are some of the signposts that reveal your personality, talents and dreams.

For the 'being born creative' series (childhood creativity)

You can find Steve at www.ineedtocreate.com

A successful artist remembers their child-like play & curiosity.

It's a good exercise to look back at your childhood and remember the things you loved to do. Was it visual art or music or acting or writing?  Was it organising or helping others?

There was something you did naturally and willingly.

How you played tells you something about yourself. What you were most curious about tells you something about the way you're wired.

Some of the most fundamental things about yourself reveal themselves at an early age. Too often those things are left far behind, never given another thought. But if you rewind to those early times, you find a few surprises.

Once you've been there, bring back what you've learnt. Use it as a foundation on which to plan your ideal work. You can draw a lot of inspiration from your past, without wishing you were back their again. Create your future. Imagining what future you want is as powerful as remembering the things that revealed who you are today.

For the 'being born creative' series (childhood creativity)

You can find Steve at www.ineedtocreate.com

So many of the worlds children are victims of an early adulthood.

It's hard to imagine from a western perspective how quickly many childhoods are finished before they are even a teenager. So many children have to work to survive. Carry wood, carry water or carry rubbish just so they have a chance to have their one meal for the day.

So many get married off early, or have to work in factories or on farms. They are lucky if they get to go to school for a few years. They are victims of an early adulthood.

It's generally not as bad in advanced economies but that doesn't mean that kids don't get to be kids.

There are many kids that don't have time to play. Meaning that they can't explore roles that they might love. Some get a part time job after school, and end up leaving school early.

Every child that stays in school is a child that will be more prepared for a life as an adult. And they can be more prepared to look after the next generation.

You may not have been prepared for adulthood either, but you can prepared yourself for the next stage of your adult life. Stay in the school of life. Stay curious. Learn what interests you. Become an expert in one area. Even if you dropped out of school, you don't have to drop out in life.

For the 'being born creative' series (childhood creativity)

You can find Steve at www.ineedtocreate.com

School kids already telling my kids, "You can't really do that". No wonder people don't trust their talents.

I child seems to be born believing that they can either do something, or they can do it when they grow up.

Every young child believe they can draw. According to a survey, as they get older, the kids that believe they can draw becomes less and less. Which is okay if that belief is replaced with a belief that they are good at something else. Unfortunately, that's not always the case.

Instead, they begin to believe, they can't really do anything. This can continue for the rest of their life.

It seems that to be great at anything, people have to ignore the seeds of doubt that other people sown into their lives.

If your love to make or play or design or organise. Or help or run or understand, then that is what you're really meant do.

For the 'being born creative' series (childhood creativity)

You can find Steve at www.ineedtocreate.com

People think, "I used to be creative", but it's still there, sleeping.

The most common thing people say about creativity is, "I used to be creative, but not any more".

Or, "I'm not creative, not like other people".

It widely accepted now that we are all born creative. It part of being human. It's how we make sense of world. Even normal conversation is a creative activity.

But over time we are subjected to a steady flow of social messages that encourage us to think less for ourselves, to go along with what the group wants, or to imitate someone else so you can be more popular. All the opposites of creativity.

People also think that creativity is just artistic. They're not an artist, singer or musician, so they "not creative".

After a while creativity goes into an uneasy sleep. It doesn't die. It just retreats inside us and dreams. Those dreams show themselves as our daydreams. We actually daydream all the time. Most people just don't take any notice of them. But that is our creative identity communicating with us.

When we begin to take our daydreams seriously, our creativity wakes up again and helps us to make it real.

For the 'being born creative' series (childhood creativity)

You can find Steve at www.ineedtocreate.com

My daughter told a kid at school she's learning the clarinet. Kid said, "You don't look like a clarinet player".

When my daughter told me this, I laughed, but then I thought about it a bit. Then I was a little disturbed.

It turned out that this kid wasn't getting alone with my daughter so he wanted her to feel like she wasn't the type to play the clarinet (what ever that is).

But this often subtle social influence to blend in, conform, or go with the crowd, becomes the normal thing to do at a curtain age. The very opposite of being creative. Instead of enjoying the challenge of trying new and interesting things, kids are encouraged to become normalised & socialised to the point that they don't know who they are anymore.

This starts early but it doesn't really stop. Adults can find themselves doing work that is totally unfulfilling just because they were 'encouraged' to follow the more well worn paths. Even if they are earning a good income, they still feel trapped by their profession.

My daughter's biggest fear is playing her clarinet in front of the other school kids. It will happen one day, but I'll need to help her to do what she loves doing, even if others think she shouldn't.

For the 'being born creative' series (childhood creativity)

You can find Steve at www.ineedtocreate.com

Met a guy that remembered me from college. He remembered artwork I did there 28 years ago.

It's really great when people remember me. Even remember artwork I did. Artwork I had forgotten I did. That's got to be one of the biggest compliments anyone can give you.

I had put that artwork in a folder in the bottom of a metal chest many years ago, but something about that work impressed him enough to remember me. He wasn't even in the same college course I was doing, so I didn't remember him.

I would hope that everyone has had something similar happen to them. I'm sure there are people out there that remember you by the work you did many years ago. I bet you can look back and remember works from other people, and think, "That work was really good". Do you know why some works stick in your mind? They stay with you because those works spoke to you. You were receptive to the subject because of the way you are.

The things you're happy to remember, are the things you're happy to experience. I would say most people are remembered for their originality. The things that surprised their audience. The thinks that changed the way we look at the world. The things that were truly creative. What do your want to be remembered for?

For the 'being born creative' series (childhood creativity)

You can find Steve at www.ineedtocreate.com

I wonder how many adults suffer from a lack of creative self expression?

I can guess that at some point in most people's lives they suffer from a lack of creative expression or self expression.

Like any condition, there are obvious symptoms: Job dissatisfaction, restlessness, lack of enthusiasm or motivation, indecisiveness, prone to imitate well known people or maybe having a mid-life crisis.

Any one of these symptoms can be contributed to other things but together they point to an internal battle.

A battle between their personality & dreams, against their career direction & other external factors.

I'm no Psychologist but there are things that makes every unique heart sing & things that don't.

Without a way to express yourself in a positive way, you can be suffering from a kind of emotional malnutrition. So feed your soul. Find the form of expression that suits you. You probably remember what that was.

For the 'being born creative' series (childhood creativity)

You can find Steve at www.ineedtocreate.com

I remind my kids, they have talents. I call them 'My little wonders'.

I'm always looking for clues on what my kids might be good at. They are so different from each other, but they have some definite personality traits that lead them in a general direction.

I can guess what each of them will be good at, but I can't predict what that will be. What I do know is, they will be brilliant at something. Maybe in a field that hasn't been invented yet, but like everyone else, they are Little Wonders. Like everyone else, they need to be reminded that they are wonderful at something, even if they haven't tried it yet.

For the 'being born creative' series (childhood creativity)

You can find Steve at www.ineedtocreate.com

I remember the art supplies I got 1st day of school. It was like Christmas. (Other kids were crying).

Do you remember your first day at school. I do.

But first, before I started school, my dad made sure I always had I good supply of butchers paper and crayons to keep me occupied. (I guess is was a good baby sitter for me).

So on my first day of school, every student got a pile of books (blank paper!!!) and stationary (art stuff!!!).

I remember sitting at my desk looking at this big pile of stuff in front of me. I thought it was pretty close to Christmas.

I couldn't understand why some of the other kids were crying. I thought school was a place to draw with other kids. Of course I was in for a rude shock but part of me always assumed that school was still a place to draw with other kids. And that didn't change in High school either.

We are all shaped by our earliest impressions. Even if they were technically wrong. We all have a first love; that time when we first drew something or made something we were happy with. What was it for you? Was it the first time you stood in front of an easel? Or the first time you walked into an art class? Or the first time you made music?

We all had a moment like that. We love to do certain types of work because it was more like play to us.

For the 'being born creative' series (childhood creativity)

You can find Steve at www.ineedtocreate.com

I had two escapes as a kid: TV & Drawing. One was an inlet. The other, an outlet

The reasons I needed to escape is another story, but I had unknowingly developed these two coping mechanisms early in life. Like most kids, I was naturally curious about the world around me. Television seemed to have everything a young hungry mind could want. I could go almost anywhere (else) just by changing the channel.

I was so hungry for the outside world that I would often get up very early and watch the test pattern until the morning programs started. Then I'd watch cartoons & re-runs until it was time to get myself to school.

My other great escape was drawing, and making things. What I was really doing was using my imagination with a pencil & paper. Like TV, I could immerse myself in it for hours at a time.

I would literally zone out so much that I could hear people talking to me. I was in total creative flow.

We all need to experience these times, being totally absorbed in something creative, artistic or something we enjoy learning or doing better. Too many people grow up with no worthy escape. They have no escape plan. Everyone needs to know what their escape from their normal responsibilities is.

Everyone has a personality & desire to work at something they love. Even if they don't yet know what that is.

For the 'being born creative' series (childhood creativity)

You can find Steve at www.ineedtocreate.com

I can feel like a care free child any time I like. I just draw.

Drawing must be one of the first things I child creates that is preserved.

So of my earliest memories is of me drawing. I loved drawing. I drew even when I wasn't ment to.

I drew on everything. I don't remember drawing on the walls but I was probably told off for it a few times.

The thing I love about drawing is it's the way I think. It certainly helps me to think better. I think in pictures. I love the fact that a drawing becomes a hard copy of my imagination. I can look as it decades later and still get the same feelings I got when I first drew it.

It still has a lot of advantages over any electronic form used to record ideas. It quick, precise, cheap and doesn't need recharging. But what it helps you to do is still amazing, and how easier it is to communicate your ideas as well.

I believe everyone can have a relationship with their chosen medium like this. Be it song writing, playing a musical instrument, photography, film making, wood work or electronics. It needs to be the way you enjoy expressing yourself. It need to say something to you and about you. You need to see the beauty in it. You need to enjoy the process. It need to be like play.

For the 'being born creative' series (childhood creativity)

You can find Steve at www.ineedtocreate.com

Creativity, Play & Love seem to be facets of the same thing.

Creativity. Play. Love. All these words are verbs. Action words.

They're not feelings. They're not labels on separate boxes. They work best when they work together.

Creativity is the love of playing with different combinations.

Play is the love of creating opportunities for your imagination to escape.

Love is creating playful ways to share with others in a practical way.

Creative people love to create new experiences for others. Play works best when it is shared, and Love is the motivation to do many great things.

If you take one of them away, the other two quickly become ineffective.

The desire to love someone comes naturally, but we need to create ways to express that love in new ways and in different circumstances. We need to create the means to provide for who we love. We need to create the atmosphere and the environment for it.

We need to create an environment where we can play with the possibilities of our chosen form of expression.

So go and find work you can love. It will seen like play to you. And show your love through what you create.

For the 'being born creative' series (childhood creativity)

You can find Steve at www.ineedtocreate.com

Childhood was too short. -It wasn't enough time to perfect my art.

If you were to ask anyone what they loved to do when they were about 12 years old, you would get some interesting answers.

They might of loved drawing, making things or designing fantastic worlds, all just for the pleasure of it.

They might even became very good at what they did, compared to other kids their age.

But often, something happened that made them abandon what they love to do. Without listing all the possible internal & external events that made them divert their attention to other things, for one reason or another, they just stopped.

Fast forward twenty or thirty years, that same person finds that he isn't particularly proud for any of his resent accomplishments. He probably can't remember the last time he worked at something he really loved working on.

I've known a lot of people like this. They played music, but not they are a truck driver. Or they loved to paint but not they work in a government department somewhere. They don't even do what they love to do in their spare time. Many of them barely remember what it was that inspired them all those years ago.

Part of the problem is, they look around them to find satisfaction, pleasure, distraction or passing amusement, instead of retracing their steps to a time when they didn't feel so lost.

Yes, childhood is too short to perfect your art, but those early times of creative flow still serve as sign-posts for a meaningful & productive future.

For the 'being born creative' series (childhood creativity)

You can find Steve at www.ineedtocreate.com

Being an adult makes sense when we remember what we loved to create when we were kids.

I'm a designer!

No one ever told me I should be a designer. No one encouraged me to do that when I was young.

No one did a personality or career profile to say I should be one. No one looked at my hundreds of drawings as a kid and said, 'You know what, most of your drawings are designs for something". (I wish they had).

No one could see it, except me. It took me a long time to work that out, even though it's obvious to me now. People knew I was good at drawing. They knew I loved to make things, but that was as far as it went.

I remember designing & making the best cubby houses of anyone I knew. I designed whole towns from small boxes on my bedroom floor.

I did go to college to become a Commercial Artist. Later I even called myself a Graphic Designer. I had a career as a Graphic Designer. But some how, I was more than a Graphic Designer, but what? I didn't know what that 'what' was.

Then I thought I should be an Industrial or product designer, or an inventor, but I couldn't see how I would be able to make 5% of all the things I would love to make.

Now I know that I am a Designer of Everything! I'll even design people if they let me.

You too will understand yourself better if you remember the things you loved to make or do when you were a kid. Do you remember what they were?

For the 'being born creative' series (childhood creativity)

You can find Steve at www.ineedtocreate.com

CREATIVE BALANCE: A DEFINITION

 O––––––––(< >)––––––––O  

Ideas that regulate or maintains Creative Balance...

One area needs to be viewed in the context of related areas:

1. If one area is balanced at the expense of other areas, then creative balance isn't achieved. eg: A balance is found between rest - energy but not Start - finish.
2. Creative balance is subjective and objective. Though it may appear to be mainly subjective.
3. Nothing can be considered from a seriously objective perspective if it has not FIRST seen to have a serious subjective value. You need to subjectively enjoy studying something objectively.
4. Avoiding extremes but not just being neutral. Move as required, not according to passing mood. And not just a little of each, just for a change.
5. Content out of context is a pretext.
6. Creative balance is not static (fixed, un-moved, immobile, inactivity). Things that prevent movement are obsolete knowledge (some published information), pre-conceptions, Uniform or general attitudes, Social or personal habits.
7. Confining or restricting your exposure to only one or two sources of knowledge or facts, Over specialisation in a field or skill.
8. Those with creative balance can be predominately specialised. Meaning that 80% of his knowledge and expertise can be in one area, but not exclusively to that area. 100% specialisation will confine your ability to be innovative.
9. It's about your creative heart, not just your thinking abilities.
10. Your creative heart includes your day-dreams, identity, interests, emotions, personal goals, motivating rewards, hopes, perceived needs, important learned skills, your values, your view of the world, the things you want to communicate, the focus of your curiosity, your desired journey or direction and what you find satisfying.
11. Creative balance is designed to explore, discover and support these things.
12. It is a tour of the interconnections that exist or can be created to encourage personal creative development.
13. It identifies the core components that are important for personal creativity. Then it connects them together so they can work as one. Connections are anything that unifies or merges parts together so an exchange of communication can begin. So all the interests, needs and hopes etc can work together, rather than competing for attention.
14. It help you find compatibility in the world around you. So the exchange of information and meaning is mutually beneficial.
15. It makes allowance for the fact that everyone wants to be happy. But for a creative person happiness comes from many sources. Some sources at one time and some at other times. Happiness is a real emotional response to emotionally determined needs.
16. It is like Chemistry. Two different substances combined will become a third and completely new substance. As you combine two average ideas, you could come up with a third, very useful idea that has no obvious appearance to the first two. With a creative person, he can combine two aspects of his life and create a new dimension to create from. For example, a creative person can combine two interests and come up with an idea for an innovative project or activity that suits him better than they could before. Or he could combine his skills with the values that are important to him and come up with a new way to communicate new meaning.
17. It isn't intellectual and it isn't emotional. It's a mixture. It it was one or the other, then creativity would be governed and limited by it.
18. A balance of creativity and curiosity comes about by personal feelings, valued experiences and the joy one can have find, develop and communicate meaning or personal observations.
19. Understanding and enjoying the relationship between opposites is encouraged, not just trying to understanding them in isolation.

(This is part of my Creative Balance series)

You can find Steve at: www.ineedtocreate.com

An artist is a creation formed in the imagination of your childhood.

There are many things that shape us into the adult we become. Our family background, our cultural or national history, our education, our work history, our local environment, major events in our past.

They all play their part, but these are all external factors. There are the internal factors as well. Often unseen and often ignored for a while, but as powerful in shaping who you are as much as anything else.

When we are young, we spend much of our play time exploring what it would be like to be someone when we grow up. We imagine being famous, heroic or a professional person. We begin as Playfessionals.

We try on these roles like a big coat. We imagine what our ideal work will be.

Some kids take their imaginations more seriously than others. They know what they want to be when they grow up.

They imagine how it feels, what that life would looks like, and what they will do. It becomes the purpose of the adult to live up to that image formed in their younger self.

This ability to imagine your ideal future is very powerful. Many successful people became what they wanted to be because they could see it clearly, long before it actually happened.

For the 'being born creative' series (childhood creativity)

You can find Steve at www.ineedtocreate.com