Creative Planning Activity #4

By now you’ve created your mindmap or lists or whatever you wanted to do to capture   1) accomplishments of the past year and 2) the aspirations for the new year.  If not, here’s a handy little Planning Booklet I used a few years ago.

Now it’s time to ANALYZE.

The notion of ‘analysis’ sometimes sets off alarm bells in the creative person.  Analysis doesn’t sound creative!  Ah, but it is My Friend.  Evaluating and Choosing are central to the creative process.

Here’s one method to create some focus:

1. Look at everything you’ve written on your Past Year map.  Circle 5 that bring you the most satisfaction.  You can use any criteria you like…the most difficult/breakthrough. the most fun, the ones that connect to your deepest values.  Anything.  Just choose FIVE.
2. Then look at these five.  What do you notice?  How might these top five inform your choices for the coming year?
3. Now look at everything on your New Year map.  Choose TEN.  Again, apply any criteria you like to choose your ten.
4. Write each of these aspirations on a notecard or a slip of paper.  Ten pieces of paper.
5. Array them and take a deep breath.  This is a good time to tap your intuition and follow those ideas that have the most juice for you.  As you read each one, what raises  your energy a little more?
6. Next you’re going to pile them up.  Of these ten, which is at the bottom of the list?  Which is at the top?  Which is second from the bottom?  Second from the top? And so on.

You now have a prioritized list of your top goals for the coming year.

What Next?

Incubate on this list for a couple of nights.  Reread your notecards before you go to sleep tonight and let your unconscious play with the ideas.  In my next post I’ll discuss how to support the process of actually DOING something with your dreams.