Jarvis - Creative Calling: Establish a Daily Practice, Infuse Your World with Meaning, and Find Success in Work + Life.

You cant use up creativity. The more you use, the more you have.

MAYA ANGELOU

Ask yourself: Is the way youre working working? Is the way youre living working?

This is a book about creativity, but in a larger sense its about life and how you live it. Its not just about starting a creative practice or becoming a better designer, writer, photographer, or entrepreneurthough it will supercharge all of your creative skills. Its about living a richer, deeper, more rewarding life than ever before. Embracing creativity in your life is like that moment when Dorothy steps out of her black-and-white Kansas house into blazing Technicolor Munchkinland.

Think about what led you to open this book today, at this moment. What are you seeking?

If youre confident that youre living your highest calling in life and fulfilling your potential to its fullest, great. If you bring generosity and playfulness to everything you do, not just to creative tasks but to every area of your life, fantastic. If the spirit of creativity and invention infuses every day and all of your important relationships with joy, inspiration, and vitality, youve already learned anything I can teach you. Whatever youre doing, its working. Youre living the dream. Go back to creating your day. The world needs what you have to give. Please give this book to someone who needs it.

Still reading?

Okay, heres the other possibility: youre not, in fact, living your dream. Far from it, maybe. Instead, youre seeking. You might be burned out, run down, stuckor you might just suspect that life on Earth could be more than just this. Somethings missing. You may or may not think of yourself as a creative personwhatever that meansbut something about this book piqued your interest. You might not know what it is yet. You might not be willing to admit it if you do. Well get to that. Rest assured, though: this book is for you.

Or maybe you do identify as a creative person, but you dont actually, you know, create anything. Much of anything, anyway. You used to take photographs, code, write, or play an instrument, but somehow the practice that once excited or fulfilled you slipped away. Funny thing is, you cant seem to get back into the groove no matter how hard you try. This book is for you, too.

Or you do make stuff. You write, dance, sing, or start business after business. It could be a side gig or your full-time job, but you create regularly and youve been successful with it. Now, however, youre unsure how to keep goingor even if you should. Maybe your current project is on the rocks, your client is driving you nuts, and youre ready to call it quits. Or you felt a void inside after your last show. In fact, maybe youve even been consideringgaspsettling.

If your creative practice isnt everything youd always dreamed it would be by this point, isnt it time to give up?

Not so fast.

Without a resilient creative practice, supportive creative peers, a thriving community, and a powerful mindset, life just does not have the same vibrancy. Even a successful professional can flounder. This book will help you find whats missing. The creativity inside of youright now, at this momentis the lever we will use. To quote Archimedes, give us a place to stand, and with this lever, we will move the world.

There is one final possibility: everything about your creative practice looks good on paper, but you still feel unmotivated, even apathetic, about continuing. This happens. Its happened to me. Everything can look right from the outside and still leave you feeling hollow.

The solution here is to remember why you started creating in the first place. We find the path forward by tracing it back to its beginning. Something inside of you called out to be expressed. Whether you started by dusting off the guitar you used to play in high school or signing up for an open-mic night at a comedy club, that inspirationthat joy, that life force you once felt in such abundanceis still available to you. You just have to hear the call and follow your path.

Wherever you find yourself, every new day is an opportunity to tune in to your creative calling.

The beauty of the path we walk is that no action is ever wastedthrough all the twists and turns, youre never truly lost no matter how far youve wandered. This is the nature of the creative process: It all matters. Its all meaningful. The frustration, boredom, or resentment you might feel now is just your intuitions way of telling you that theres a turn up ahead. Will you be ready?

A good life is designed. Created. And this book is about living a better life through creativity. By expressing yourself regularly in small ways, you will discover the agency and drive necessary to create the life of your dreams. Creativity is as essential to health and well-being as exercise, proper nutrition, and mindfulness. Only with this potent energy unleashed will you be capable of living your life to its fullest.

This book is for you.