This is a powerful time for creativity, and gives you a new window of opportunity to set your goals, dreams and intentions for the year ahead. Happy New Year to my Chinese friends! 

It’s time to be who you want to be. It’s time to march to the beat of your own drum, be true to yourself and even take a walk on the wild side. (Thank you Lou Reed. I still love that song).

Do you have a sense that your life is not all it could be? Do you have a sense that your life is going by and you’re not fully living it?

You may want to fully express your talents and abilities but you are not sure what they are.

I encourage you to let your creativity soar. You know you want to.

What are your natural talents, skills, gifts and abilities? Where do you shine?

It’s time to be open to new ideas and new ways of being in the world. It’s time to connect with your self and dream what you want to see in your world.

What would you dream if you knew you could not fail?

Life Is a Journey of Cooperation

It’s not who gets the best education, the best job, the best husband, the best wife, the best home loan, the best promotion and has the best toys in the end, wins.

Your purpose is to express your creativity in the world and help others to express theirs.

Dare to live the life you have dreamed for yourself. Go forward and make your dreams come true.

– Ralph Waldo Emerson

Your Creative Self

Everyone is born creative. I remember when my parents gave me a set of six hand puppets when I was 9 or 10 years old and my father made me a puppet stage, so I could manipulate the puppets without being seen.

I wrote puppet plays and charged my brothers and sisters one penny each to see the plays. I loved writing plays, putting on shows and being an entertainer. And my family loved being entertained.

Creativity does not only happen in childhood. We have that creative drive throughout life but sometimes our energy is taken up with earning a living and we do not believe we have time for creative pursuits.

Your creative self might be calling you to paint a canvas, write a book or screenplay, make a short film or write a course and teach it online.

Creative people like artists, writers and inventors generally live longer and are more productive than non-creative people.

Grandma Moses began painting at age 78. One of her paintings, The Sugaring Off was sold for US$1.2 million in 2006. She died when she was 101.

Picasso was still painting past age 85.

George Bernard Shaw was still writing plays at 90 and Thomas Edison was still inventing at 90.

It’s very hard to have ideas. It’s very hard to put yourself out there, it’s very hard to be vulnerable, but those people who do are the dreamers, the thinkers and the creators. They are the magic people of the world.

– Amy Poehler

The Upper Limit Problem

Gay Hendricks says we have an “upper limit problem” that holds us back. He says we all have an inner thermostat setting that determines how much love, success, financial abundance and creativity we allow ourselves to enjoy, and when we exceed our inner thermostat setting, we often do something to sabotage ourselves, causing us to drop back into our old familiar zone where we feel secure. He also says this thermostat setting is programmed in early childhood, before we can think for ourselves and once programmed, our upper limit thermostat setting holds us back from achieving all the love, financial abundance and creativity that is rightfully ours.

My upper limit problem was programmed in childhood when my parents said things like, “Who do you think you are?” when I was smart and confident. I learned it was not safe for a girl in my family to be smart and confident, and I held myself back from fully expressing myself.

Have you held yourself back in any way?

Gay Hendricks says our upper limit thermostat setting keeps us in our zone of competence, or at best in our zone of excellence, and prevents us from living in the ultimate destination of the journey, our zone of genius.

Do you limit how much success, love, financial abundance and creativity you allow yourself?

Are you living in your zone of genius?

Recommended Reading

Gay Hendricks, The Big Leap: Conquer Your Hidden Fear and Take Life to the Next Level

You can email me at maureenp@maureenpprice.com

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