Imagine that you could “upgrade your personality” and strengthen certain traits that would help you create regularly and deeply and that would help you more effectively meet the challenges of the creative life. What traits would you choose?
Here are twenty traits that serve the creative encounter and the creative life.
+ Concentration
+ Courage
+ Depth of knowledge
+ Devotion
+ Discipline
+ Energy
+ Flexibility
+ Imagination
+ Intuition
+ Nonconformity
+ Openness to experience
+ Passion
+ Patience
+ Persistence
+ Problem-solving attitude
+ Resiliency
+ Risk-taking ability
+ Self-direction
+ Thoughtfulness
+ Workmanlike attitude
Isolating one of these traits and working on it can prove a rewarding experience. For example, you might decide to become a better risk-taker, both in your art and in your relationship to the marketplace, and focus on just that trait by inventing exercises and tasks that help you take new risks.
For example, you could decide to tackle a creative project whose bigness frightens you. This is one way to “work on” a trait: you dream up something useful to do that strengthens that trait in your being. Pick one trait from this list and dream up a task that tests it. This is a simple, straightforward way to turn yourself into someone equal to the challenges that are bound to confront you!
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Eric Maisel’s latest book is LIFE PURPOSE BOOT CAMP. To learn more: