We are living in a time that is all about specialization, meaning that your greatest success will to a good degree be based on knowing where you are specially gifted, and building around that giftedness, what some call strengths. The creative process begins by understanding your pieces, which would be your natural strengths and talents, skills, and aptitudes. Once you have all your pieces out on the table, you then must figure out how they fit together into life.
If you have ever worked a puzzle, you know the first thing you do is lay all your pieces out on the table because you want to see what is there first. Next is to look for the edge pieces, which represent your boundaries. Once the boundaries are in place, you can now begin to put the pieces together to create the whole picture. As you work your puzzle, the whole picture is eventually revealed.
Your life is a creative process, somewhat like working a puzzle. You first find the pieces of your personal puzzle which represents the things that are already deposited deep within you, often in raw form, but having great potential. Before you begin to put your puzzle together, you must look for the frame pieces. These are your boundaries. The most important things in your creative process will fit inside of this frame. It doesn’t mean you don’t have other things. But your goal is to find those that are most important to your creative process. After putting your frame together, you then begin to fill in your puzzle with the various pieces until you see the whole. Voila!
Once you see your picture, your have enough information to create your personal vision, which is what you desire to do, become, or achieve. Don’t worry, it isn’t written in stone, but written on an editable tablet should you discover new pieces in the future. Your vision is what you want to do.
Your vision is the what, or your purpose. Now you need an aligning passion, which is why you want to achieve your vision. Passion is important to know because you will always face obstacles as you pursue your life as a creative process. Those will be real obstacles, and your passion – or knowing why you want to do this vision is the fuel that will empower you to overcome the obstacles. In addition to your passion, you are now ready to create your Mission Statement, which is the plan that represents how you will use your passion to achieve your vision.
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