Creating a Life Worth Living

I've owned this book for a few years and even now, I turn to it once in while for motivation. Similar in objective to Julia Cameron's books, it is designed differently, more like a 15 weeks workshop. It is absolutely essential for creative types looking to guidance on their path, no matter what turn they are at. Even if you don't make a living at your art or craft, this book is excellent for those who want to give more space for their personal project. "Creative types" loom large; there must be something in "Creating a Life Worth Living" for a large number of persons. Most alive and curious working people have a second or many passions beside working at their jobs: engineers writing science fiction books, secretaries making specialty chocolate or salesmen writing books. Whatever your passion, whatever the stage you are at living it, you can find ideas to guide you and portraits of creative people enjoying their own life worth living. In the same vein, I would also recommend "The Pathfinder" by Nicholas Lore and "Soul Mapping" by Nina Frost et al.

Carol Lloyd's "Creating a Life Worth Living" bears a subtitle that declares it to be "a practical course in career design for artists, innovators, and others aspiring to a creative life." And in that, it succeeds quite well. The course (developed from workshops Lloyd teaches) starts with the assumption that maybe you have a yearning to do something different with your life, but you don't yet know what that is or, at least, how to do it. Starting with a "daily action" and moving on to some material on idea generation and abstraction, Lloyd mixes thoughts on creativity ("It's good to simply look at your lived experience and separate it from your concepts about 'life.'") with concrete exercises and interviews with successful creative people from all walks of life: teachers, painters, actors, writers, inventors, entrepreneurs, performance artists, dancers, directors, and more.A book like this won't bandage up your life and make everything better in five easy steps. It won't reveal a magical key that will show you how to make millions from your watercolors. But it can help you to see your life a bit more clearly. It can help you to see the options and resources you might have missed, and it can help you to figure out what needs you have, creatively speaking, and how best to fulfill them.Questions encourage you to take both the short and the long view, the practical and the ideal. Lloyd helps you to let go of your preconceptions by having you write down everything, no matter how silly, and by sharing stories of people who succeeded by doing what everyone told them they shouldn't do. So if you're already snugly fitted into your creative career, you'll have little use for this book. But if you're struggling to figure out what to do next or where to go, this book could help you turn your interests and desires into a concrete plan of action that fulfills both emotional and practical needs.

At first glance I shied away from the book. After all, it clearly is a specialized text for artists only! How wrong I was." Creating a Life Worth Living "addresses the need of both artists and non-artists to search for a creative life and maintain it. The concepts, exercises and techniques shared in its pages speaks to the unactualized creativity embeded in our souls. Of course the text is focused on artists (broadly used term) but the imparted information can be used by people in all fields of endeavors. I found three areas of information especially helpful to the non-artist. First, you are provided with mini-profiles and interviews of artists ( in varied fields) sharing their journey of success. Their stories put in perspective that one must struggle and stay disciplined in your field. Second, the author develops artistic profiles to enable a person to identify their inherent artistic style of creativity. The profile is almost an echo of the Myers Briggs Type Indicator profile only this time geared for artists. Such a profile helps an artist to capitalize on their strengths. Third, jobs are identified that can support or undermine your creativity. The pros and cons are discussed to enable you to make the best out of your long term artistic goal. No matter how creative you are certain material needs have to be met (ie, drudgery job) in order to live and fill your artistic goal. Lloyd's book is an excellent manual on how to live out and actualize your creative spirit regardless of what field you choose. Your dreams will become a reality through planning, research, imagination and putting your plan into action.

Whether you're an actor, a painter, a performance artist, a writer, an illustrator... this Self-Help Book is set up like a seminar for all Creative Souls. An 11-week course in setting career-minded goals, organization, and curing any lapses in inspiration; this book has become a cornerstone for the way I am building my life and career as an artist. (And I was able to read a little bit each week without getting bored! ) I wish there were some way I could tell every aspiring artist suffering from self-doubt about this wonderful and uplifting book which has become a practical guidebook for the way I live my life. Whether you've been searching for a way to legitimize your "hobby", or if you know exactly what you want out of your creative life, but have no idea where to start...buy this book! You will not regret it.

Carol tells us "I discovered . . . . that I instinctively knew how to help [creative people]clarify what they wanted, navigate the vague terrain between vision and real life, and arrive at practical solutions." She is clearly gifted, and not only as a well-read writer and a counselor for those of us crying (for whatever reason) for creative focus. Buy this book if you have become serious about facing and dissolving your fears and blocks to the long and winding road of your unique creative happiness and life worth living.