An article in the New York Times last year suggested that creativity is the new cure for mid-life crises. By taking up a creative activity, it stated that we often get in touch with a passion we may have forgotten about or not had the time to fully explore. In doing this, we can find a new meaning to life in a way which buying a new car could not achieve.
The start of a New Year always brings out a lot of advice on setting goals and making New Year resolutions, so in this post I am going to discuss some of the issues I see with setting goals and compare the rational, logical approach of setting SMART goals to the more intuitive approach of ‘going with the flow’.
On a personal note I have always been a bit averse to the setting of goals, especially the setting of SMART goals. However I confess to spending some time at the start of every year reflecting on my future path. As a strong P in MBTI terms, setting actual goals seems to be a constraint too far and I feel much more in tune with the concept of going with the flow! (more…)
Recently I have been revisiting the concept of flow as discussed by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi who has described ‘Flow’ as being a ‘state of heightened focus and immersion in activities such as art, play and work’. In the link above he talks about happiness and being absorbed by what we do to the extent that we have not capacity to pay attention to anything else. (more…)
Barbara is an Executive Coach, leadership, and creativity facilitator with a passion for creative tools and writing about creativity and leadership.