Page 263 - THE DO-IT-YOURSELF LOBOTOMY Open Your Mind to Greater Creative Thinking

254 Appendix

Plot Your Creative ForceField
On the worksheet chart your creative forces, positive and negative.
And don’t hold back. This instrument is most valuable if filled out fully
and frankly.
Positive forces. List the forces that promote, encourage, allow, or
even demand creativity for you. They are inner-driven (e.g.,
natural curiosity) and outer-driven (e.g., “My boss expects it”).
Negative forces. List what discourages, limits, blocks, or prevents
creativity for you. Again, these are things within you (e.g., “my
fear of failure”) and things less in your control (e.g., “risk aver-
sion in others”).
Magnitude counts. Note, not all forces are equal. To help weight
them I’ve provided three levels on each side: major, moderate,
and minor.

Also note, we all have different Creative ForceFields in different
areas: our jobs, our hobbies, our home life, and so on. Choose which
Creative ForceField you want to focus on; that should be the one you
measure in this exercise. But feel free to copy the worksheet and fill out
multiple forms for different areas.

With or Without a Net?
You can fill this out totally unaided from your own introspection, or
you can look at some frequently mentioned forces provided on our
cheat sheet on page 256. If you do choose to use it, we recommend you
do as much as possible unaided first, then apply your own specifics
when using our cheat sheet to keep the assessment as true as possible.
Once you’ve completed your Creative ForceField, save it to docu-
ment where you are at this point in time. This is your present reality
and your road map for creative growth. What’s within your control,
and what’s not? It’s all in your control:
• Accentuate the positive.
• Add to the positive forces.
• On the negative side, eliminate, diminish, avoid, accept.